Longreads

A stop-and-frisk during a ride-along with the Newburgh police.(Photo: Joseph Rodriguez) One morning earlier this month, just before sunrise, a silent convoy of SUVs streamed into the tiny, troubled…

Stewart isn't just being a bully here. He is being disingenuous, and he knows it. Worse, he's tapping into the collective fantasy without knowing it. He's the gunslinger saying he's going back to the farm while at the same time putting notches in his belt. More precisely, he's the presumptive Edward R. Murrow saying that he'll go back to comedy once he cleans up journalism. But he can't go back. He can't go back to the pleasures of fart jokes and funny faces — the pleasures of comedy — because he's experienced the higher pleasure of preaching to weirdly defenseless stiffs like Jim Cramer. He's saying once again that he's outgrown comedy and is no longer a comedian. But he's not saying what he actually is, because then he'd be judged. And Jon Stewart, to a degree unique in the culture, exists outside the realm of judgment.