Welcome back!

Earlier this week I found myself thinking, ‘God, I really miss Jon Stewart on the Daily Show’. Wishful thinking? Sure, but odds were I wasn’t alone. And then the news broke. 

Sometimes, it seems, you can actually get what you want.

Okay, he’s only going to be at the desk on Monday nights, but he will be the executive producer of the whole show from next month until after the election. HURRAH!

I’ve missed this guy. Yeah, I know he’s been around on YouTube and that’s great, but this is where he’s needed right now.

For years The Daily Show was the last thing Mike and I watched before turning the television off. Couldn’t go to bed without seeing what Jon Stewart had to say. Same after Mike died. (When a Kiwi friend, in New York for a UN meeting, told me she’d been to a taping, I was dead jealous – even though I knew from being at tapings myself that they can be quite boring.)

His last show was on 6 August 2015 – not long after the Tangerine Wankmaggot announced his run for president. No, I don’t have the date memorised. I still have that last show on my PVR. Partly because it was a bit of television history, mainly for Springsteen’s appearance.

It took some months for me to go back to The Daily Show after his departure. Don’t get me wrong. Trevor Noah did a fine job (as I discovered when I finally did go back), but he could never be Jon Stewart, could he?

And then there’s Israel. Remember the flak he took for saying this in 2014?

No? Well, trust me, he took some flak. And was labelled a self-hating Jew by the Israeli government.  

If there is one voice I want to hear right now on this subject it is Jon Stewart’s. 

Of course his won’t be the first American voice to speak out against the barbarity of the Israeli government’s indiscriminate assault on the Palestinian people. Many have denounced the slaughter, including this other “self-hating” Jew.

But let’s face it, Stewart will be pithier – and more potent.

So, welcome back, Jon. We’ve missed you.

Best news so far in 2024.