Giving Jon Stewart His Due

I really have no way of knowing, but I'm pretty sure most of Buster's readers are familiar with the dynamic duo of Comedy Central programming, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  I suspect there are a very few who've never allowed themselves the pleasure of some quality TV time with Jon and Stephen.

It's too late to catch Colbert's classic character (he's off to CBS, but there's always YouTube), but even though Stewart recently announced that after 16 years, he's leaving The Daily Show in a few months, you can still catch him every night at 11 p.m. for awhile longer.  If you've never watched, you should find out what you've been missing before it's too late.

What follows is as good an expression of the significance of Jon Stewart as any I've heard or read.  (By James Poniewozik in the current issue of Time magazine.)  
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He was a "fake" news anchor, but his commentary was a kind of journalism nonetheless.  The Daily Show really came into its own with the second Iraq War -- or as The Daily Show branded it, "Mess O'Potamia."  As the WMD's failed to materialize, as the "facts" that built the case for war proved far less than factual, Stewart and company hit a theme that later resonated in Katrina and in the financial collapse:  Maybe the traditional authorities and experts don't really know what they're doing.  Maybe the press that was meant to put a check on them has stopped checking.  Maybe someone needs to stand athwart history and declare, "This is bullshit!"

Jon Stewart did that, and any honest media critic knew he was doing the job better than the rest of us.