Haha, IEDS!

John McCain's appearence on the Daily Show was a watershed of sorts—in 10 or so interviews Jon Stewart has evolved from cuddling up to the senator to clobbering him with his own talking points. Which isn't to say Stewart pulls a Ed Murrow on McCain. He has the studio audience on his side and occasionally only needs to say a cliche to get them whooping. (He makes one analogy about a house with no doors that makes zero sense, and it gets an ovation.) But he's hostile, and that makes it easy for McCain to angrily implode before the interview even begins. In the first 30 seconds after he sits down, McCain jokes about putting an IED under Stewart's chair and about kicking his dog. Have you ever wondered why politicians don't joke about kicking animals? Hey, here's why.

(If the video doesn't embed, go here.)

Matt Welch's cover story, which inspired McCain to actually set up a roadside bomb on Welch's driveway, is here.