NP: Emerson, Lake and Powell, Emerson, Lake and Powell

I was going over The Week's summary of the recent poll that declared Jon Stewart the "most trusted news anchor in America, and this sort of jumped out at me:

Brian Williams certainly isn't willing to concede any ground to Jon Stewart as a newsman, said Dave Itzkoff in The New York Times. "There was a chill in the air" recently when the NBC News anchor taped a segment on Stewart's show (watch Brian Williams on Jon Stewart's show). Stewart skewered Williams for what he saw as NBC's offer to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford of favorable coverage in exchange for the scandal-plagued politician's appearance on its shows. But Williams shot back, saying that while he had wanted to be Walter Cronkite when he was a kid, "It was like Carrot Top to you."

If that was a chill, I want an all out fake news-real news cold war. Williams has been on the show a whole bunch of times, and it doesn't come across as an uneasy truce. But he knows his role, and Stewart's, and their history together allows him to give as good as he gets. The sparring seemed pretty good-natured, but if you hadn't ever seen the two interact before, I guess you might miss it. The Carrot Top joke was comedy gold. And despite some initial wavering, the NBC anchor had a pretty good response to David Gregory's offer to Sanford about framing the issue. But see for yourself: