Man, John Stewart wasn’t kidding when he called Tucker Carlson a dick.

I just watched a recording of Crossfire from last week where John Stewart was their guest. He did a hilarious job of taking the hosts, Bob Begalia and Tucker Carlson to task for debasing the already dismal level of political discourse in this country by surrending their responsibility as journalists to serve as extensions of politician’s spin machines.

Carlson tried to put Stewart on the defensive by citing the softball questions Stewart asked Kerry when Kerry was a guest on the Daily Show. Stewart conceeded the point, but pointed out that the Daily Show was a comedy show whose lead in was a show about puppets making crank calls. Carlson kept trying to suggest that Stewart had shirked his responsibility, at which point Stewart pointed out that it was pretty bad if the co-host of a “debate” show on the preeiminent news channel was looking to a comedy show to ask the candidates hard questions.

For pretty much the rest of the show Carlson did his best to prove Stewart’s point that Crossfire was theater pretending to be journalism by resorting to various personal attacks, rather than actually addressing Stewart’s points.