On his Daily Nightly blog, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams sent his happy-birthday wishes to liberal comedian Jon Stewart. In a Wednesday blog post playfully titled "Where Have You Gone, Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz?", Williams mourned how the writers' strike has taken Stewart away from his "vital comedic work" trashing Bush. Just like Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams thinks Stewart is an American treasure:

The serious fact is that Jon Stewart and his colleagues in comedy -- along with the writers who support them -- serve an invaluable purpose by skewering the pompous and deflating the egos of the high and mighty. They function almost as a separate branch of government. We need them, and we miss them.

If Stewart attacked Williams with as much aggression as he attacked Bush, Cheney, or Robert Novak the "vampire demon," perhaps Williams wouldn't be as quick to miss him. The Williams post also included a long list of Internet resources for people who missed Jon Stewart's conservative-bashing humor as much as he did. One missing-Stewart page even allowed you to wallow in a one-hour C-SPAN interview with Stewart. His infamous and pompous you're-hurting-America lecturing of Tucker Carlson on CNN's "Crossfire" is lauded as "possibly the greatest moment in television."  

With his high and mighty look-Ma-I'm-funny ego, Williams has made a series of guest appearances on Stewart's show, and he seems to be angling to continue the string. Here's a larger snippet of the sappy Williams tribute:

But for the moment here at the Daily Nightly, we’d like to extend special birthday wishes to Jon Stewart. He’s 45 today, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him. You may recall that Jon once hosted a show on Comedy Central called The Daily Show. The sad truth is that we haven’t seen Jon -- or Jay, Dave, Conan, Stephen and the rest, including the gang at SNL -- since the writers’ strike knocked them all off the air 24 days ago.

Life has gone on without them, of course, but not for the better. Word is that talks have resumed, and we hope that means the strike will soon be over. But in the meantime -- for weeks now -- much vital comedic work has gone undone. There has been no one to skewer the pompous or ridicule the self-important; no one to blow the lid off the story, whether the story has a lid or not. No one, in short, to slip a banana peel under the body politic. There’s a presidential campaign going on, for goodness’ sake -- not to mention stories about OJ Simpson and Miss Puerto Rico. There is so much out there to poke fun at -- so much that demands to be poked fun at -- and it is simply going unpoked. This is no laughing matter.

The serious fact is that Jon Stewart and his colleagues in comedy -- along with the writers who support them -- serve an invaluable purpose by skewering the pompous and deflating the egos of the high and mighty. They function almost as a separate branch of government. We need them, and we miss them.

While they're away, here are a few web resources to tide us all over. In the meantime, happy birthday, Jon. And best wishes for a happy return.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.