If Jon Stewart was a total partisan about anything, he wouldn’t be doing his job. So I expect him to be more cynical and keep a better critical distance from the bombardment of Gaza than I have been able to do. (But hey, I don’t think I’m doing such a bad job myself!)

Still, it was a huge relief to see him joking about the Israeli incursion in a way that made all the Israel apologists on TV look like dum-dums. (They tend to be much more annoying than Israel apologists in real life, because their position on the matter seems much more a political stunt than actual conviction.)

My favorite part of Monday’s show: New York mayor Michael Bloomberg asks, If a crazy neighbor was shouting through your door threatening to kill you, wouldn’t you want the NYPD to send all available resources, not just a single cop?

“That depends,” says Stewart, “if I was forcing that person to live in my hallway and pass through a checkpoint every time he needed to take a shit.”

LOL