As Kerry launched into a monologue about why President Bush avoids talking about issues like the economy, jobs and the environment, the comedian interrupted.
"I'm sorry," Stewart said. "Were you or were you not in Cambodia?"
Stewart and Kerry then leaned in and stared each other down before Stewart asked about other things Kerry's opponents are saying.
"Are you the Number 1 most liberal senator in the Senate?" he asked, joking about claims that Kerry is "more liberal than Karl Marx, apparently."
"No," Kerry answered.
"Are you or have you ever flip-flopped?" Stewart asked.
"I've flip-flopped, flap-flipped," Kerry said, poking fun at the GOP's label.
Stewart also asked, "Is it true that every time I use ketchup, your wife gets a nickel?" The candidate's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is heir to the Heinz food fortune. "Would that it were," Kerry said.
Kerry offered an observation on a candidate's life.
"You'd be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men's room," he said. "It's the most bizarre part of this entire thing."
*sigh* He's never going to give anyone an answer on the Cambodia stuff, and his staff's comment that the first Purple Heart "may have been for a self-inflicted wound" is going to disappear into the ether. It would have been foolish for President Bush to deal with the Air National Guard stuff on Letterman or Leno, but this is apparently the Kerry strategy.
