Jon Stewart, TV Personality

* Born: 28 November 1962

* Birthplace: New York, New York

* Best Known As: Host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show

Name at birth: Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz

Jon Stewart has been the host of Comedy Central's comedy and news show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since 1999. A former stand-up comedian known for his biting sarcasm, Stewart began hosting television shows in 1989, beginning with Short Attention Span Theater. Before Stewart's gig on The Daily Show he hosted You Wrote It, You Watch It (1992) and The Jon Stewart Show (1993-95), and appeared several times in HBO's The Larry Sanders Show (1992-2001). He has also appeared in small roles in the movies, including Half Baked (1998), The Faculty (1998, starring Elijah Wood) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001).

About the book:

From Publishers Weekly

Cheeky, irreverent and playfully ingenuous, this abbreviated history of democracy is everything one would expect from the writers of Comedy Central's fake news program, which recently (and somewhat scandalously) won the Television Critics Association's award for outstanding news and public affairs series. The book is laid out like a textbook, with "Discussion Questions" ("Why do you think the Framers made the Constitution so soul-crushingly boring?"), "Classroom Activities" ("Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!") and plenty of amusing graphics, including a board game that resembles the game Life but which follows a presidential term: "Optimistic press release on economy ineffective. Spin again." No one evades the authors' scrutiny, not even the Pilgrims, who came to America "to escape religious persecution... create a society where they could worship as they pleased and one day, God willing, even do some persecuting of their own." The media fares the worst, however. An entire chapter is devoted to telling the "inspirational" story of how the media "transformed itself from a mere public necessity into an entertaining profit center for ever-expanding corporate empires." But if this and other criticisms kindle a few unpatriotic feelings, a section describing how worse off the rest of the world is should buoy spirits. From its dedication ("To the huddled masses—Keep yearnin'!") to its final chapter, which lampoons the 2004 presidential candidates, this humorous sendup of American politics never fails to entertain, poke fun and provoke thought.

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