From there, Stewart played clips of Fox discussion of the Al Jazeera deal and joked: “Oh my God, that means Muslims will be able to see into our homes.” But the Fox critique of Gore was not that he sold his network to Muslims but that it was hypocritical for the global warming activist to sell out to an oil kingdom (a critique also heard in some quarters of the left.) Indeed, in a brief aside, Stewart said that was “a pretty legitimate point.” But it wasn’t about Islam. And while some of the Fox clips Stewart played referred to Al Jazeera as “anti-American,” none mentioned Islam.

But that didn’t stop Stewart. His main point, at the end of the segment, was to note that Fox parent company News Corporation owns a 20 percent stake in a Saudi network, Rotana, that, like Al Jazeera, has broadcast hateful comments about Jews. That, Stewart suggested, meant that the real hypocrisy in the Al Gore-Al Jazeera story lay not with Gore, but with Fox. Of course, to make his point, Stewart had to ignore what the Fox commentators actually said. (Disclosure: I am a Fox News contributor.)