Jon Stewart barely lets conservative superwonk Ramesh Ponnuru get a word in edgewise in this Daily Show clip. Stewart was cross-examining him on his book, Coulter-esquely titled The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media and the Courts.

The book sounds like a pro-life political screed on abortion and stem cells. Stewart slings Manichaean zingers: fetal stem cells in medical research = collateral damage in the Iraq war, and the intrusion of the state into the womb (his exact wording had to be bleeped) = preventing murder by committing rape.

Ponnuru loses the charisma stakes by not pushing back.

Related post: Ramesh Ponnuru stirs the teakettle