In another ‘frank’ and ‘rich’ assessment, Barbara O’Brien adds to Frank Rich’s assessment, that experience has not yet proven a difference between Clinton and Obama in the Senate, and on the campaign trail, the evidence looks even worse.

I heard another even starker assessment from Jon Stewart on Larry King last night: he suggested Bill Clinton had sabotaged Hillary’s campaign.

KING: And what do you make of the acumen of Bill Clinton?

STEWART: The acumen?

KING: Yes. Here is one of the great politicians ever, who seemed to go off course here attacking Obama.

STEWART: It is as though he might, I don’t know, subliminally be trying to subvert his wife’s run for president. It’s as though somehow they might have a destructive relationship.

KING: What are you –

STEWART: I love when he defends her vehemently like, how dare you humiliate my wife? That’s my job. Don’t take that from me. That has not been outsourced. It’s just a very strange thing. You know, look, they have a bond, but he is — unfortunately he is fighting for his legacy, too. I mean, the one thing you find, it seems, that’s universal about ex-presidents is they spend their remaining years on Earth, except for Gerald Ford, who seemed to be un-neurotic about it, they spend their remaining years like Colonel Kurtz, in a shadowed room going, they were wrong about me, the things they said. I was a great president. I was in the top quintile.

You know? It is all about the ranking. You’re constantly hearing Bush going — everything has gone wrong in his presidency. He’s like, history will be the judge. It is a great way of saying, look, when we’re dead, you will see.

Being that he’s a comedian, you can see the humor in that exchange. And if you go to the transcript, you’ll see a whole lot more great lines targeting everyone.

But as anyone knows who’s watched Stewart being interviewed, he veers into serious moments where it’s clear he’s really not kidding. And when he spoke about Clinton, and McCain (just after the passage I quoted), that was the serious Jon talking. He may have intended it to be black humor when he made the remark about humiliation, but after “It’s just a very strange thing” he was absolutely serious, that Bill was putting self interest ahead of Hillary’s.

Her supporters may be dismissive because Stewart’s a funnyman, but a video of that passage wouldn’t support that defense. Part of Stewart’s effectiveness if you’ve watched him use penetrating questions with guests is his capacity to analyze political events accurately and aim his satire with precision. And when I saw him go there last night, my first thought was “ouch.”

(Now go read the rest of the transcript for the funnier stuff, or look for the video if it comes)