"It’s no longer enough for stars to be “triple threats” — actor, singer, dancer.

Today’s celebrities must add political commentator to their resumes, said Mo Rocca, correspondent for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

Hearing what entertainers have to say — “that’s the most important thing that can come out of this conflict,” he said with a straight face. “You’ve got to be a quadruple threat.”

In a coup of remarkable timing, Rocca was the featured guest Tuesday night at the National Symposium on Political Humor sponsored by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

The satirist, who considers himself more a television “personality” than a comedian, filled Old Cabell Hall with 850 college-age fans.

About 500 more were turned away at the door, making the event the most popular held by the Center for Politics, said Larry J. Sabato, Rocca’s interviewer and the center’s director.

Despite some criticism about continuing to hold a light-hearted event on the eve of a probable war with Iraq, Sabato noted that “the war hasn’t started yet.”

“This is a university. A university is built on free speech.”

Casually clad in gray and red plaid pants, Rocca cracked wise about various topics, including Democratic presidential candidates Richard Gephardt, who could become the United States’ “first albino president,” and John Edwards, who “has a sort of Doogie Howser charm.”

The big guns, however, were reserved for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, whom Rocca blasted for his uncontrollable giggle, high heels and predilection for pornography.

“I heard he likes ‘Men in Black II.’ I thought, if that’s not a reason to bomb him …” Rocca said before being interrupted by audience laughter.

Saddam Hussein he dismissed as “a poor man’s Dabney Coleman,” referring to the actor continually cast as bad guys.

Some figures, however, are more difficult to joke about. President Bush’s syntactical hardship is a worn-out topic, as was Monica Lewinsky when Rocca joined “The Daily Show” in 1998.

“It’s nice if the president is a type you can go off on,” Rocca noted.

Interspersed with the jokes were a slide show of Rocca at numerous presidents’ gravesites and highlights from “The Daily Show,” which mocks political figures and media coverage of major events.

A clip about the University of North Carolina’s assigning students a book about the Quran last year and the resulting brouhaha drew the most cheers from the UVa crowd.

The piece employed a map graphic to point out “Chap-Al Hill,” prompting howls from the audience.

Mo Rocca also made fun of the kind of non-news news items such as some of the stories placed on this web site. Below is a picture of Mo when he went undercover at a cheerleader camp.

A Bethesda, Md., native and Harvard University graduate, Rocca said before the show that although much of the humor on “The Daily Show” is considered cutting edge, the writers are in fact rather conservative when it comes to writing about sensitive issues.

“I’d like to think that anything inappropriate to make fun of we wouldn’t think was funny anyway,” he said. “There’s enough to make fun of without making fun of people getting hurt.”

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, proved a test for all comedy shows, Rocca said.

“Nothing that happened that day was ever going to be funny in any way,” he said. But bombing Afghanistan — and the resulting media coverage — led to more material for “The Daily Show.”

“Geraldo [Rivera] was just like the motherlode,” Rocca said.

Stewart’s interviews with entertainers and politicians leave the most room for controversy, Rocca said, but noted that no scandals have erupted from the show.

Sensitivity aside, Rocca noted that different standards apply to cable, which has a much smaller audience than network television and National Public Radio.

A frequent guest on the NPR quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” Rocca said that language restrictions on the radio network lead to more work for humor.

As for “Today” on NBC, where he is an occasional visitor, Rocca joked: “Matt and Katie are a little too racy for me.” " (Kate Andrews, The Daily Progress, March 18, 2003)