Has Jon Stewart sold out?

Lately I find myself WATCHING Keith Olbermann's Countdown and recording The Daily Show to watch later. Maybe it's that Ed Helms and Samantha Bee just aren't as proficient in the kind of deadpan skewering that make Stephen Colbert and used to make Beth Littleford so perfect in the kind of "asshole" segments that surround the incisive political commentary. Or maybe it's because for every spot-on, deadly skewering Jon Stewart does of the likes of Bernard Goldberg, there's an episode of fellatio such as that he gave Rick Santorum last night.

Last week Stewart so calmly and sneakily eviscerated Goldberg's claim that celebrities are ruining America that Goldberg didn't know what hit him. But when the creepily smooth-faced, helmet-headed Little Ricky came on last night, Stewart collapsed as if he was interviewing God. Is Stewart running for President as a DLC Democrat or something, that he's afraid to alienate the Christofascist zombies who are going to buy Santorum's book?

Here's a guy who says that ALL two-parent families could live on just Daddy's salary if they just cut back their spending. Here's a guy who equates homosexuality with bestiality (for all that he tried to soften his stance on that last night, though he made clear that only CHASTE homosexuality is OK). Here's a guy who, for all his talk of marriage, believes that my marriage, and the marriages of millions of Americans (including many Republicans) isn't important because it has not produced children. And to that end, he not only opposes abortion under any circumstances, but also says that Griswold v. Connecticut, which legalized contraception, was bad law.

If ever a wingnut deserved the full Jon Stewart treatment, it's Rick Santorum. So why did Stewart cave?