If you spend your life deliberately misinterpreting things to get a cheap laugh, then at some point it's not really any different to just being genuinely ignorant.
When people like Stewart take little short cuts with the truth to get the laugh it's disappointing as well - why couldn't be find a smart joke or insightful comment that is actually based on the truth?
Therefore satire is a distraction from truth, cheap shots about our great leaders and what is going wrong in the world, not anything that gets us nearer to understanding what is going on. It is just another way to disengage but be apparently engaged.
There is a danger inherent to small subsets of the population acting as policymakers. It is much easier to craft rationalizations that can get past some of the people all time. The fact that policymaker's rationalizations often fall apart when challenged from someone outside the apparatus is what makes Satire both comedic and horrifying at the same time.