I admire Jon Stewart, who I think is currently presiding over perhaps the greatest body of political humor this nation has ever seen. But I also think I agree with Elias Isquith that it's becoming disingenuous for Stewart to claim he's just a comedian, not a player. The interviews he does with politicians on his show are often quite political…and by the way, better at getting to what some of these people really think than any other interviewer around. Like Isquith, I also thought the Stewart/Colbert "Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" lacked purpose or humor, though it strived for both.
Stewart's attempts to have it both ways — function as pundit, pass for "just a comedian" — remind me of something I don't like about roman à clef novels or films. It's where the author or filmmaker wants you to accept his or her version of some real event…but when you call them on errors of fact or distortions, they go, "No, no! This is a work of fiction." Oliver Stone's JFK was like that for me — a film that wanted you to accept its depiction of history but which granted itself the right to just plain make up stuff or put words into the mouths of real people who never said those things.
The whole piece being discussed that was on The Daily Show was about how Stewart had been slamming aspects of Obamacare and that was a big deal. It may well be to those who think the show never goes after Obama — a view widely held by those who either don't watch the show or who believe that unbiased political humor would be based on the premise that Obama is a foreign-born Commie out to destroy America. (At times, my right-wing friend Roger seems to think that anyone who doesn't have that as a bumper sticker on his car is a radical leftie. The middle-ground, centrist position is that Obama is merely a Commie dupe who doesn't realize he's destroying America.)
Stewart's views are not exactly a secret and I find him fairer in ridiculing "his side" than any so-called political pundit is these days about criticizing his or her own team. That may be the one way he differs from them…that is, if you count the fact that he's usually funny and usually accurate in his facts.