The Most Trusted Man in America?

After presidential candidates Clinton, McCain, and Obama spoke at the 2008 annual Washington conference hosted by AIPAC, Stewart mocked all three for pandering: McCain talked about having traveled to Israel with Joe Lieberman ("You don't need to bring your own Jew"); Clinton referenced a passage from Isaiah ("She knows a Jew from the Bible!"); and Obama recalled a Jewish-American camp counselor ("That's one step from ‘Hey, I rented Yentl once!'"). After waiting to hear some "constructive criticism" of Israeli policies that "may not be in the best interest of the world," Stewart rolled clips of silence and went for the kill: "Oh! I forgot! You can't say anything remotely critical of Israel and still get elected president! Which is funny, because you know where you can criticize Israel? Israel!"

Although the topic doesn't come up often, it's also evident where Stewart stands on intermarriage. In 2000, he married Tracey McShane, a veterinary technician and a Catholic. Stewart, who does The New York Times crossword puzzle daily, popped the question with a puzzle of his own. The paper's "Puzzle Master," Will Shortz, found Stewart a puzzle creator for the occasion.

The Stewarts (they changed their names legally in 2001) live in a loft in lower Manhattan and have two children. Nathan Thomas Stewart, four, is named after his grandfather. Maggie Rose Stewart is two. As Stewart told Tony Blair on The Daily Show in a September 2008 interview, "My wife is Catholic. I'm Jewish. It's very interesting; we're raising the children to be sad."

Perhaps more than any other satirist, Stewart commands the attention -- and respect -- of folks in the "real" media. New Yorker editor David Remnick and PBS' Moyers consider him an important media critic.The Daily Show's trademark editing technique of playing back-to-back clips of politicians contradicting themselves has garnered that highest form of flattery: imitation by the very networks Stewart mocks.

Nevertheless, Stewart insists that he and his staff are just a bunch of "monkeys making jokes." In particular, he dismisses suggestions thatThe Daily Show aims to do anything more than make people laugh. On October 15, 2004, when he went on CNN's Crossfire -- a then-popular target ofThe Daily Show because of its screaming matches between pundits -- Stewart begged hosts Paul Begala, a former Clinton advisor, and Tucker Carlson, the young bow-tied conservative journalist, to "stop hurting America" with their "partisan hackery." Carlson would have none of it. He pushed back, attacking Stewart for a softball interview with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

An incredulous Stewart responded by reminding Carlson that their shows were not in the same category. "You're on CNN," he said. "The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." The exchange was a YouTube sensation, and Stewart was tagged the winner; few disagreed with his statement that something is really wrong with the fourth estate if, as he put it, "news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity."

"Stewart panders exclusively" to his liberal, young audience, insists Carlson, now at MSNBC: "He's a show for the Democratic Party. He sucks up to power rather than confront it." Stewart's interviewing style has been called into question by his admirers as well. Lately, there have been instances where Stewart has been a more aggressive interviewer, squaring off with McCain and Blair over the Iraq war. But it is unrealistic to expect comedians to carry out the job of newsmen, says Syracuse University's Thompson. "Jon Stewart is not a journalist. He doesn't claim to be, and when he says he's not we should believe it. His interviews are in the tradition of Johnny Carson. Basically he's polite, at times deferential. He behaves in the interviews like a well-brought-up young man."

Stewart denies that The Daily Show has a political agenda. His Comedy Central colleague Stephen Colbert -- whose mock Bill O'Reilly persona onThe Daily Show led to a spin-off created by Stewart's Busboys Productions called The Colbert Report -- views Stewart as an equal-opportunity satirist. "Jon is admirably balanced," Colbert has said, explaining that Stewart always tries to get at the "the true intention of the person speaking, left or right" in order "to be able to honestly mock."

Stewart makes no secret of his impatience with President Bush, known on the show by the superhero moniker "The Decider" or as "Still President Bush." Stewart recently told The New York Times that he is looking forward to the end of the Bush era "as a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal." But perhaps out of respect for his comedian-cum-journalist role and unlike other comedians like Silverman, an activist for Democrats, and Jackie Mason, an outspoken Republican, he stays somewhat mum about his own political preferences, although it is clear that he leans Democrat. (The only documented recipient of his financial largesse is New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat and Big Apple mayoral candidate, with whom Stewart roomed after college.)