After more than 16 years and nearly 2,600 telecasts, Jon Stewart can feel proud of his scads of Emmys and his Peabody Award, his cultural gravitas (he hung with the Prez, both on and off the air!), even his reprobate status at Fox News. Who could blame him for wanting to depart "The Daily Show" on this high note? Besides, maybe it had gotten too easy. By June, when Donald Trump jumped into the presidential race, a giddy Stewart framed the jest-alluring candidacy as Trump's going-away gift to him, "putting me in some sort of comedy hospice where all I'm getting is straight morphine." On Aug. 6, Stewart, now 52, will step aside, making way for Trevor Noah, a 30-year-old stand-up comic from South Africa, to manage this nightly reality check as the nation dives headlong into the 2016 presidential election cycle.
