I tweeted the title of this blog earlier tonight and it's been retweeted by dozens of people. That's because Jon Stewart -- even as he mocks the news -- is actually holding journalists accountable. And journalists at their very best, hold politicians and society's institution accountable.

That's what America lost with the death of Walter Cronkite tonight. Accountability. By any measure, Cronkite was a journalist with integrity. We knew we could trust him to tell us the unbiased truth.

He wasn't about entertainment. (He resented Charles Kuralt's features which ran at the end of his broadcasts.) He was a newsman in the tradition of Murrow.

That's why in the 1970s -- 1974 some said tonight -- Cronkite was named by his fellow citizens in a survey as the most trusted man in America.

With his death, I think perhaps Jon Stewart has taken on that role.