Bond with Daily Show host Jon Stewart

WASHINGTON — Jon Stewart is the often-combative, liberal-leaning host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

Christopher “Kit” Bond is the senior senator and strong conservative from Missouri.

Put them in the ring (OK, the television studio) together and you get — a friendly exchange?

Stewart, known for taking on Republicans and some members of the media (just ask Tucker Carlson), and Bond had an amiable conversation Monday on “The Daily Show” touching on health care, Afghanistan and Bond’s new book, “The Next Front: Southeast Asia and the Road to Global Peace with Islam.” The video can be seen here.

The pair traded a few one-liners, with Stewart appearing to pull a few of his normal punches.

Bond, though, was game for Stewart with a few stingers of his own:

– On President Barack Obama’s response to his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, asking for more troops: “I’m a stronger supporter of his policy now than he appears to be. And that’s a problem.”

– On comparing the House of Representatives to his Senate colleagues: “We’re a little older, maybe more mature, maybe a little slower. But I went to Washington 23 years ago thinking I don’t understand the House of Representatives. Now I know I don’t.”

– On the possibility of a government-run health care system squeezing out private insurers: “I’m going back to the private sector. And I want to make sure there’s one left.”

Stewart thanked Bond for his decades of public service (Bond isn’t seeking re-election next year) and offered one piece of advice as Bond rides into the sunset: “Go out in a blaze of glory. Stand up and go, ‘I’ve been a communist the whole time!’”