© Steve Neaves

Here, we've published a selection of the interview.

**Alastair Campbell: Has Barack Obama been a good president?

** Jon Stewart: That is too broad a question to answer. The difficulty has been the difference between rhetoric and reality. When you run on hope and change - "Yes we can", "We are the ones we've been waiting for" - that is a message of true reform. And then you govern from the perspective of "I will put a new coat of paint on this termite-infested place"... When he was running for re-election, I said, "You ran from a place of Roosevelt-style 'We must up-end the institutions, for they are failing' and governed from a place of pragmatism: 'We had the financial crisis, we must work within the system.' So do you still believe 'Yes we can'?" "Yes," he said, "absolutely." Then there was a pause and he said, "But..." And the audience exploded.

**The "but" was the rhetoric being caught by reality.

** Exactly. If you are going to have the audacity of rhetoric you have to have audacity of effort. If there is disappointment in Obama it is that he didn't go down swinging.

People would like to have seen more noble failure.

Was Bill Clinton the last president who could work the system and make change?

He did not have such a complex international environment. [But] if he ran tomorrow he would win by a landslide the scale of which people would be stunned by. He brought an air of understanding and competence that has rarely been seen and people view it now with great nostalgia

Clinton was an internationalist, whereas Obama feels more narrowly focused on the US.

I think to mitigate the criticism of himself as "the other" he has to try to constantly course-correct.

So he is not being himself?

I think so.

Do people look to Hillary with hope?

People look to anyone with hope. But there's some exhaustion of empire. How many Clintons and Bushes can get to run the country?

But Bill Clinton would get elected by a landslide.

Against Hillary?

He would be elected against anyone by a landslide.

He would have beaten [George W] Bush?

Certainly.

Did Al Gore make a mistake in not using him?

Al Gore made a mistake in being Al Gore. He didn't have the right instincts; he is a flawed politician. He could have used Bill Clinton but that shield would not have been enough. [George W] Bush is a formidable politician, and his team had relentless intent no matter what. Bush got to do whatever

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