Tim Russert was Jon Stewart’s guest on The Daily Show Tuesday night. The main course on Stewart’s menu of questions: Bush-bashing. Don’t the Bush people have an “open contempt for democracy” when they don’t submit to the All-Powerful Russert on Meet the Press? How do they “get away with their belligerence?” And when David Gregory dances behind Karl Rove at the White House correspondents dinner, why doesn’t he lean in with a microphone and assert “you lied to everybody!”

Stewart made his "open contempt for democracy" outburst after Russert complained he hasn't interviewed President Bush since 2004, Vice President Cheney since last September, and didn't interview Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in the last three years of his tenure. But Bush has submitted to plenty of other interviews (including with NBC anchors Brian Williams and Matt Lauer) not to mention press conferences. The same goes for Rumsfeld. Russert insisted to Stewart that our leaders "cannot make tough decisions unless you're willing to answer tough questions." But when has Russert submitted to a tough, adversarial TV interview about his role in the Plame-Wilson war on the White House? Never.

Now consider the booking data for Meet the Press in the second Clinton term. A Nexis search suggests that President Clinton granted an interview to Russert for the show's fiftieth anniversary on January 9, 1997, and never returned in his second term. Vice President Gore appeared to make his first appearance of the second term on September 16, 2000 when he was a presidential candidate, and Hillary Rodham Clinton never submitted herself to Russert in that term, even as she ran for the Senate. Did Stewart whine that they had an "open contempt for democracy"? Were they belligerent?

Let's not forget that when some people interview Bill Clinton, they go a little soggy. Two of the lamest, softest touches interviewing Clinton in the last Global Initiative go-round last fall were...Jon Stewart...and Tim Russert. But the self-satisfied Russert was happy to equate himself with democracy "with a big D" and the First Amendment as well on the comedy channel: 

STEWART: Let me ask you a question, because you've met these guys. How does Karl Rove not have to come on your show on the CBS show, the ABC show, how does he get away with not being interviewed by anybody in the press? He's clearly at the center of so many political decisions at the White House. How do they keep him away from you guys?

RUSSERT: They just refuse. He just won't come on.

STEWART: Seriously. He'll just go (silly mumbling noise).

RUSSERT: You know, I think the problem is when the president said if he found out who was was the source of the leak about Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson's wife and the whole Scooter Libby trial that resulted from that, it is now very open that Novak had two sources, Richard Armitage from the State Department and Karl Rove at the White House. That's an area they don't want to go near. But it's interesting, Jon, because it's harder and harder to get someone from the administration to come on. I interviewed the President in February of '04. That was the last time.  Vice President Cheney, not since last September. Donald Rumsfeld, not the last three years that he was secretary of defense.

STEWART: But these guys will call you at 2:00 in the morning on super secret probation background and give you that kind of information.

RUSSERT: I wish they did.

STEWART: An anonymous -- Isn't that how, isn't this whole thing happened, that they called Matt Cooper and all these guys at midnight and went, “Joe Wilson's wife, C.I.A., Don't put my name down but that's what's going on,” but they won't speak out in, in public. Shouldn't they have to?

RUSSERT:  The First Amendment's interesting. [Stewart laughs.] Because you don't have to speak.

STEWART: But don’t they have –

RUSSERT: When I think of a responsibility of a public official – Yes, of course.

STEWART: Because they won't speak to congress either. You know, you see Gonzales. It’s as though they’re --

RUSSERT: Well, he has to because he was confirmed. But Rove....

STEWART: But he doesn't speak. He goes if front of congress. They say so this meeting that you had where you fired these eight attorneys, tell me about it. I don't remember that meeting.

RUSSERT: [Laughs.] I'll say. Gonzales won't come on Meet the Press.

STEWART: But isn't that just open contempt for-- what do they call it there? -- Democracy? At some level –

RUSSERT, effusing like Ed McMahon: With a Big D! With a Big D!

STEWART: At some level, isn't that contempt? ( Cheers and applause )

RUSSERT: All through history-- and Meet the Press has been on 60 years now. I've read every transcript, watched every show. 

STEWART: Back when it was an actual Gutenberg press. It was years ago.

RUSSERT: But you you cannot make tough decisions unless you're willing to answer tough questions. If you duck and bob and weave and avoid, then you're in a position where you try to do some things because you haven't gone out and tried to talk to people. One of the first things that someone who I've known all my life told me is that you just don't send an army to war. You gotta bring a country to war. That's what the disconnect is now. The vast majority of the american people do not believe Iraq has been worth the price we've paid in soldiers dying and in money.

STEWART: I think they believe that... ( cheers and applause ) That we've been... I honestly think too if they felt like we had been talked to as intelligent, sentient creatures that could help make that decision or learn it, there would not be this animosity and raw emotion. There would be more understanding.

Is there anyone outside the floating orbit of Jon Stewart super-fans who believes he would be more magnanimous to Bush if Bush groveled about how wrong he was? Russert sketched the scenario:

RUSSERT: Say, these are our judgments going in. And if they were proven to be true, starting with the weapons of mass destruction, then go out and talk to the American people as grown-ups and say, you know what? We missed it. Big time. Colossal intelligence failure.

STEWART: So how do they get away with their belligerence? Is it because they feel like our accountability moment is the election. Once that's over, everyone else is agin’ us, and we just have to circle the wagons and fight?

RUSSERT: Pretty much, I think that's the view. When the president’s at 28 percent approval,  they're in a position of hunkering down. And they don't think they can turn that around over the next 18 months. And so now the president has simply said, i think I'm right about this. And I'm going to see it through.

STEWART: And history 40 or 50 years from now when everyone is dead will judge me. That's whathe was saying. I have to show you thi clip though becauseis the part thais t most galling this is from the correspondents dinner from this year. This is Karl Rove... [Jumping around to a goofy rap, saying he’s “M.C. Rove.”]

Now, when you look at that, doesn't it make you crazy? First of all, David Gregory, your colleague, is standing behind him. Can't Gregory just lean in with a tape recorder and go, ‘Hey, man, you lied to everybody. What do you have to say about that?’ As he’s dance – At those dinners do you want to just....

RUSSERT: I try to miss the dinners. But i think Gregory did lean in with a microphone.

STEWART: Did he try to get him to answer something?

RUSSERT, kidding: I think they have it on tape. No.

STEWART: I didn't think so. Dammit! I hope you guys get the chance.

RUSSERT: So do I. I think it's really important for the country. It really is. ( Applause ) We keep making requests. (Cheers and applause)

He also said most of the 2008 contenders are afraid to come on for an hour and discuss the issues. Stewart didn’t want to change the subject:

STEWART: Bush, Cheney, Rove, those guys should have to sit down. And there should be like one of them jerry lewis telethons just 24 hours and we all should get to walk up to the mike and literally just – “What the (beep), man?” (Cheers and applause.)

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