The “Daily Show” host tells the Arizona senator, “President Bush has been very clear that through his leadership, he made the world safer…. My question to you is this: How much safer can we afford to have him make us?” When McCain wouldn’t answer straight, Stewart chided him, saying, “Don’t dodge the question.”

Partial transcript:

Stewart: [The Bush administration doesn’t] have the credibility anymore that their judgment in this situation is correct. So I keep wondering, why do they keep saying to us, ‘And this keeps showing why you need to keep us in power’ –and consolidating all the government’s power into an executive branch that has made nothing but mistakes.

McCain: I think the president has stated on several occasions in some pretty good speeches the fact that we have made mistakes, that if we had to do over again, simply would do a lot of things differently. And he has tried to emphasize that this is very tough.

Stewart: You think he’s learned something?

McCain: I do.

Also, check for the priceless look on McCain’s face when Stewart asks him why he hasn’t taken Sen. Ted (“series of tubes”) Stevens aside to tell him that the Internet is not, in fact, made up of tubes.

McCain recovered and answered, “I wouldn’t want to disillusion him.”


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