“It’s the job of Conservatives and Climate realists to convince people that AGW is, literally, a lot of hot air, not Stewart’s.”
Satirists aren’t some super breed who can float magically over the fray; they’ve gotta’ be coming from somewhere. Satire isn’t even possible absent a personal sense of right and wrong that, in the end, is shared by the audience. EVERYBODY, Jon Stewert included, has a duty to tell the truth.
Ah but that there is the rub! As you say, the personal sense of right and wrong has to be shared by the audience. If Stewart was only coming from one direction, by neccesity he would alienate a proportion of his audience. It therefore follows that he needs to work at being non-partisan, and the best way to do that is to concentrate on the “eternal verities”. The point about the satire on climategate is not whether AGW is right or wrong, but that the proponents of it have been caught being dishonest, and are attempting to silence discussion. He is inviting you to laugh at their hypocricy and trickery rather than their beliefs per se.