To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Stewart's humor, which he custom-crafts for a mostly college-age audience. "The Daily Show"'s intention of showing clips from the news in order to mock the conventional coverage of the news and get to the bottom of what's really going on in the world always seemed to me too dependent on the thing it derided--the comic equivalent of covering an old song. Stewart's deflate-the-talking-heads shtick consists too much of sarcastic jibes at the Pompous or Deceitful Public Figure, at the Underlying Reality of Self-Interest; it's more like throwing fruit than making jokes.

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Stewart can be funny when he's not playing his new role as comique engage, though it's strange that he can't mimic or do accents--he's the only American comic I've ever heard who can't do a British accent. My Korean grocer can do a British accent. Most peculiar is that he keeps using the identical outrageous-silly voice Johnny Carson patented decades ago. Maybe someone should give him a nudge. But the really discouraging thing is that nowadays, Stewart seems to consider it more important to be a good citizen than a funny fellow. According to the newspapers, a substantial number of younger viewers actually get their news from "The Daily Show." So for some time now, Stewart doesn't just want to skewer the conventional news and the mendacious politicians. He wants to clarify the news, and to educate his audience.

The result is that Stewart weighs down his jokes with a kind of Government 101 knowingness. He's not just funny about politics, you see, he's savvy about the way the system works, and he's going to help us through the maze. In Washington, "you have to cut through the partisan gridlock just to get to the bureaucratic logjam." Stop, you're killing me.