9/11 Comedy Crisis

If anger is the source of all humor, in his last Daily Show of the year, Jon Stewart pulled back the curtain, skipped the jokes and showed us pure rage about Congress' failure to enact medical care for 9/11 responders in the lame-duck session.

Instead of the usual lineup of fake bloviators, Stewart hosted a panel of police and firemen suffering from toxic effects of working at Ground Zero, who offered living testimony as commentary on Jon Kyl's complaint about having to work so close to Christmas and Mitch McConnell's tears at his colleague Judd Gregg's departure from the Senate.

No jokes about hypocrisy could match Stewart's rage over the treatment of those who work--and expose themselves to danger--365 days a year compared to the posturing of politicians who normally ooze sympathy for them but refuse to give their health care priority over extending tax cuts for millionaires.

Stewart's anger persisted into an interview with Mike Huckabee, who was there to promote a children's Christmas book but found himself defending Republicans and Fox News for insensitivity.

The former Arkansas governor and minister, now a Fox employee with hopes for the 2012 GOP nomination, who once wrote a book of diet advice after losing 100 pounds, looked like a beached whale being harpooned.

If Huckabee had any bipartisan jokes ready for the encounter, they will have to wait for next year.