Jon Stewart Tests Life Post-'Daily Show'

Is there creative life after The Daily Show for Jon Stewart?

The liberal comic is set to find out this summer when he takes on his directorial debut, Rosewater. The project sounds noble to the core, the true story of a journalist forced to spend months in an Iranian prison. The film is based on the book Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity and Survival by Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molloy.

Stewart, who is also writing the screenplay, will take time off from his Comedy Central commitments to complete the project. Show correspondent John Oliver will assume “anchor” duties in Stewart’s absence.

The film could be a one-off, a chance for Stewart to stretch without leaving the comfortable setting of The Daily Show. If the film generates Oscar talk, it could convince him to give someone else a chance to be the liberal media’s clown prince.

That would certain hurt the left’s ability to set the comedy narrative, a task Stewart handles as effortlessly as any progressive comic on the scene. Stephen Colbert does his best to do just that during his half of Comedy Central’s nightly political comedy block, but he doesn’t have the media’s stamp of approval Stewart has owned for some time.