Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz is on the “liberal bias” patrol and he’s got The Daily Show and Jon Stewart under investigation. You may recall that less than a month ago, Kurtz predicted that Stewart‘s bias has taken him “out of the zeitgeist.” But today, Kurtz shamelessly begged Stewart to have him on.

Despite his “out of the zeitgeist” prediction, Kurtz has been spending an awful lot of time thinking and talking about Stewart lately. He fretted over Stewart’s “kissy -face” Hillary Clinton interview about two weeks ago. Last week, in an interview with Senator John McCain, Kurtz asked if Stewart is “fair to Republicans.” That prompted a response from Stewart, but not the invitation Kurtz was apparently hoping for.

In today’s MediaBuzz show, I lost count of the number of times Kurtz mentioned Stewart even before he got to the “Tube Talk” segment featuring him. There, Kurtz said:

Well, my diabolical plot worked. We finally got Jon Stewart to acknowledge the question of whether he’s way softer on Democrats – as with his really friendly Hillary interview – than on Republicans. Now don’t give me that ‘he’s just a comedian stuff.’ Jon Stewart’s an important media commentator who uses humor to make his points.

Kurtz played a clip of Stewart ridiculing Kurtz’ “Is Jon Stewart fair to Republicans?” question to McCain. McCain answered, “No, but it doesn’t matter, really.”

In his monologue about McCain, Stewart pivoted from the Fox clip to a riff about McCain and who has been wrong more often. Stewart invited McCain on the show for a “good old-fashioned wrong-off” competition.

Along the way, Stewart answered the “fair to Republicans” question, albeit obliquely. “Does the Pope s*** in the woods?” Stewart responded. Here’s a hint for Kurtz: No.

But Kurtz must have been so subsumed in envy at not being the one getting the invitation, despite all his efforts, that he missed it. He accused Stewart of having “sidestepped, ducked, dodged, changed the subject” on the fairness issue.  Then Kurtz closed the segment by asking, “If you’d ever like to take it on, I’m available. Just have your people call my people.”

Now THAT’S funny! You’d think a professional media critic would not need Jon Stewart to answer the question as to whether or not he’s fair to Republicans. In fact, you don’t even have to be a media critic at all to know the answer. What’s even funnier is that you’d think Kurtz could find enough important bias right there in his own “fair and balanced” national news network backyard without havin to troll a half-hour comedy show that makes no bones about what it’s up to.

Watch the comedy below, first the intentional one from Jon Stewart, then the unintentionally funny response from Kurtz. Video via Crooks and Liars.