Jon Stewart in 2008

Who can save this country from another boring presidential election, in which candidates effectively avoid discussing the issues that face this country, and instead inundate our television programming with old WWII vets talking shit? Jon Stewart can. So, he's not a viable presidential candidate. As the anchor of the fake news program on ComedyCentral, "The Daily Show", Jon Stewart has experienced incredible popularity, most notably in the run-up to the 2004 election. Then again, he is a comedian and wouldn't be taken seriously if he took himself seriously. Instead, I propose that Jon Stewart runs a shadow presidential campaign in 2008. Town hall meetings in a fire-station in Iowa, visiting a school in rural New Hampshire, Jon Stewart should be there all the way through the primaries, stealing face time from the real candidates, and calling attention to the issues at hand, through trivilizing the daily baby-kissing put on by the other candidates. What our presidential system needs more than anything right now is a little humor. How else can we take seriously a candidate who dodged the Vietnam war organizing a smear campaign against another candidate who served? Or, perhaps, a candidate who treats duck hunting like a major policy decision (proved to be tragic for Kerry). We need a candidate who will call out the others for their blatant disregard for the intelligence of the American people. We need a candidate who has a sharp tongue and nothing to lose. Basically, we're talking about Howard Dean before he became the front-runner for the Democratic nomination and morphed into everyone else (despite the famous scream moment, which to this day I don't get). Only this time, we need to take this one all the way. C'mon Jon, you know you'd have a hell of a time doing it, and the ComedyCentral team would eat the publicity up. It might even give you some treasured opportunities to go up against the likes of Sean Hannity or Bill Frist. And really, who can turn down all that bunting, or the opportunity to edge out Mickey Mouse on the write-in contest?