Hitch did his thing tonight on The Daily Show.  He shows up, moderately disheveled with bloodshot eyes, and drops some casual blasphemy to freak out the squares (tonight, Gandhi was a radical extremist and Mother Teresa tried to spank him.  Hitchens, not Gandhi.).  Hitch pees on some sacred cow just to mark the territory, to establish to the mainstream that we're truly, truly in a No-Spin Zone.  Cocksure college professors do this all the time, like the Nam Vet Criminology professor who talks ejaculating while firing a machine gun, or the law professor who declares that Antonin Scalia is "dest roying democracy democratically."  You do this to establish that you're in charge intellectually, to elevate yourself above the plebian audience while making it seem like a given fact.  They're not stupid, you're just superhuman.  It's an effective strategy:  You destroy their received wisdom argument before they even run it. 

Whenever Hitchens goes on a mainstream show like Hardball or Bill Mahr, this is how Hitchens sets up his argument.  He destroys your status-quo, middle-brow conceptions before you even try to impose them on him, which frees you and Hitchens up for his real points.  This is where I admire Hitchens:  He uses this opportunity to advocate for, say, the Kurds (as he does tonight, with a Kurdish flag pin on his lapel--the Hitchens version of a Support the Troops magnetic ribbon your SUV).  But Hitch does more than just say "Support the Kurds" and drive off.  The anti-war Stewart crowd is always ready to jeer whatever hawks he tosses them, but here Hitchens makes them swallow the boos before their leave their collective lips.  "The Kurds support the Coalition forces fighting to bring peace to their country.  We should be very proud of that."

Even for those of us who hated, hated, hated this war as a tactical measure in the war on terror, we have to remember that that argument is over.  We have to hope for, and support, progress toward a civilized society there--no matter how remote the possibility.  We can't let our anti-Bush venom cloud the fact that people like the Kurds are counting on us--for better or worse.  We can't root for Bush's failure just because we thought John Kerry would have been a better man for the job.  As Democrats, we have to be ready for when we're called back to duty, for when we're drafted to service in case the Republicans fail.  Which they probably will, but we can't root for it.  Entire nations are counting on us.

And that's one thing about Hitchens that I admire.  He will absolutely call out hypocrisy and moral duplicity, no matter how sacred the cow or mainstream the idea.  He's right about the Kurds--that is something for us to be proud of.  We can disagree about whether this little crusade was ever remotely possible, but we shouldn't disagree about whether the Kurds deserve our support.  Hitchens throws this at the Daily Show audience, and it sticks.

After the commercial break, Stewart engages Hitchens on Sudan.  Here's where something fascinating and frustrating happens.  Stewart rattles off an argument about how difficult it is for the West to intervene because we don't understand the issues at stake.  Hitchens expands the point, explaining that we think it's a war against Islam, when what's really happening is that there's a war within Islam.  Stewart takes that idea and seemlessly flows into a salient observation about the specific warring factions in the Sudan--this is not your average talk show banter, and this is where Stewart, again, shows that he does in fact have some chops. 

Hitchens shoots him a look and says, "That's a very good point..." but then Stewart does what he always does:  Cuts the guest off to make the joke that yes, the basic cable comedy chimp actually knows some things about stuff.  And he drags out the joke for thirty seconds, while Hitchens--now completely engaged in the conversation--strains&nbs p;to get at his deeper point that we now know there's genocide and we're obligated to do something about it.

It was a great and terrible moment.  Here are two of my favorite guys engaged in a decent conversation, making some serious contrarian points and confronting the audience without provoking them.  And Stewart, again, frustratingly, resorts to using comedy as a shield--as if he's scared that we'll get bored if he doesn't do his little monkey dance.  John, when you've got a talent like Hitchens on your show, don't worry about us flipping the channel--Hitchens al ready engaged us.  We watch your show because we are already informed.  We get the jokes; that's why we think they're so damn funny.  So when you bring Hitchens on, in all his sweaty, greasy-haired glory, just let him go.  You've got enough game--as you showed with the Sudan thing--to put up a formidable defense and/or advance the conservation substantively.  That's what keeps things interesting.  You told Tucker Carlson you weren't going to be his monkey, and we loved you for it.  But don't monkey around when you've got the Hitch on a roll.  Let him tell the story about getting spanked by Mother Teresa.  Hitchens did name that book "The Missionary Position," after all.  Hitch doesn't need your help to be funny and informative at the same time.