Jon Stewart risks his moral authority

First, watch Thursday's episode of the daily show. Stewart's guest is Betsy McCoy, allegedly the source of the term 'death panel', although she never called them that.

During the financial crisis, Jon Stewart built up quite a reputation as a kind of moral authority for America. Anyone who's seen his massacre of Jim Cramer can attest to this. I felt sorry for Cramer, yet Stewart had clip after incriminating clip on his side. I could tell that Jon took no great pleasure in what he was doing, but that he felt like he had to get the truth out. I respected him for that.

But he seems to have subtly dismissed his role as legitimate debater here, even though he gave his guest the majority of the show's time (a pattern when the issue is important the guest is talking to) when he descended to demanding his debate partner doing something so silly as look up a page in the bill she had with her in a binder hundreds of pages thick, then chided her by singing a song while doing so. It was kind of shallow humor, especially for Jon Stewart.

Honestly, from what I could tell in the show, the specific section could be read by either party's interpretation and both stepped beyond the point a few times. I don't think his guest ever really resorted to the sort of hyperbole you saw come out of Sarah Palin's mouth about death panels, and I honestly think Stewart didn't seem on his best game here. He used the audience too much as a bully pulpit, pressuring his guest, when he's usually far more cool and even defensive of his guest against the audience's displeasure.

I hope this isn't part of a growing trend and that Jon Stewart remains our society's post-modern sense of morality (which of course has to be on a comedy show), but what I saw today was just a sliver of arrogance on the part of a man who's so frequently condemned the hubris of others.