We congratulated Conan, and made fun of Carson, for their respective stances on the Writers Guild Strike. But now comes news that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are going to return without their writers in January.

In a statement, the two hosts said they would prefer to return to work with their writers. “If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence,” they stated.

This is disappointing news, even more so because they are two people who are clearly intelligent and understand the issues involved (sorry Carson Daly, we just get the feeling you don’t read the newspaper). Their move will probably embolden studios and networks to continue to take a hard line against the writers. And it’s hard to imagine the shows will be very good without the writers. Seems like a double-whammy. It’s also frustrating that Steward and Colbert didn’t articulate their reasons for coming back. If anyone can find a link that explains it, please post in comments.