Along with millions of others of viewers, I’m going to miss Jon Stewart.
At least we still have Colbert. And we can hope that he won’t lose his edgy punch when he moves over to the major network.
And Larry Wilmore is doing a damn fine job in Colbert’s vacated spot.
But Stewart was the king of this era’s version of late night comedy/satire.
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Progressive evangelical activist Jim Wallis went so far, in a 2009 interview with Stewart, to suggest he was a kind of prophet for our time, who spoke hard truth in public to power.
There’s probably something to that, in that satire can be the most effective means of generating cognitive unrest with the craziness that goes on and that might otherwise go unnoticed. Whether the satirist actually accomplishes any real change (or even intends to) is perhaps another question.