Jon Stewart —who at times has shown he can be a very compassionate man—illustrates the often exasperating contradictions of many liberals still attached to an order defined by stunning sociopathic criminality and hypocrisy. Thus, when Stewart first "retired" from the TV spotlight about a decade ago,  we were not among the mourners.  In fact, as card-carrying contrarians, we celebrated Stewart’s departure in the only way we saw fit: By reposting this classic, hard-to-surpass analysis by Steve Almond of what Jon Stewart and his protegé Stephen Colbert really represent in the maelstrom of American culture. As Almond astutely notes, far from actually serving a newsworthy role, let alone consistently educating mass audiences and criticizing the empire…Stewart and Colbert are trivializers of evil, their legacy one of defanging the truth about systemic evil by hurling toothless parody at it.—Patrice Greanville