Monday night's much vaunted Comedy Central "The Daily Show" face-off between host Jon Stewart and Sen. Rick Santorum turned out to be a dud.

It put some viewers to mind of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game -- good, in principle, opposing players, but neither side willing to scuff up his uniform in a real contest for victory.

Both Jon Stewart and Sen. Santorum were smiling and patting each other, palpably seeking to find areas of agreement rather than battling it out in at least a semblance of a battle of intellects or wits. Mr. Stewart was trying to show that he wasn't normally mean to conservatives, in an effort to raise the level of conservative willing to come on his show. He makes no secret of the fact that he would like to get President Bush to turn up.

Sen. Santorum was trying to show that he was not really the sort of snarly conservative who would consign Jon Stewart to the flames of hell if he had half a chance to do so. And Sen. Santorum was selling his book, although his campaign chest is already brimming over.

All of this wouldn't matter if it were simply a question of the relative ratings of late-night comics. But Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" has just about moved into cult status, particularly among young people. The trouble with the once-original Jon Stewart is that he has started to take himself seriously, paying attention to the set of his show and, unfortunately, to the level of prestige of his guests.

He should have gone after Sen. Santorum by starting out with video clips of some of his great moments -- claiming that homosexual sex morphed into bestiality, rushing to Terri Schiavo's bedside, gloating over his technical defeat of the Penn Hills School District -- then asking for comments on these great moments, dead-pan, making Sen. Santorum wonder whether they were serious questions or if Jon Stewart was putting him on.