He still remembers the show fondly. Watching Jon pace the stage with a tiny microphone talking politics while saying the F-word in a place designed for the most beautiful music in the world. There was still hope.

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See, there was a time in America when Jon Stewart, the host of "The Daily Show," was for many Americans the most trusted name in news. Not the most trusted name in comedy, but news.

That time has passed.

More than fifteen years after its debut on a network whose name should have given us a clue to the show’s true allegiance, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (which premiered in 1999 after giving Craig Kilborn the old heave-ho as the original "Daily Show" host) has gone from an invaluable bullshit detector on a government waging unjust wars on a mad hunt for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, to, at best, an armchair activist’s watercooler conversation starter (“Hey, did you hear what Jon Stewart said last night?” “Yeah, I feel like I know everything there is to know about the Middle East now. Want to hit up the falafel cart for lunch?”) and at worst, a “news” program that’s as guilty of cheerleading some of President Obama’s worst offenses as Fox “News” was of rooting for Dubya’s never-ending wars.