Sean Hannity and Mark Levin mix it up with Alec Baldwin on WABC Radio's Brian Whitman show.

It seems that Sean Hannity and Mark Levin are the only two guys in the country who take Alec Baldwin seriously. He's a hothead, he says foolish things--give the guy room to earn his clown bona fides.

As it stands, Levin, Hannity and Baldwin reminded me of the old Steve Miller Band favorite--"clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am--stuck in the middle with you."

I suppose the size of Hannity's audience means there is a substantial market for these kinds of antics, but whatever happened to charm and the razor wit? Baldwin could have been dispatched with a well-chosen phrase instead of this bout of mud wrestling.

Perhaps the remaining sole practioner of the art is Jon Stewart, who while he doesn't quip much, understands that less is more, that when something is absurd, comment dispassionately from the sidelines or risk getting mistaken for one of the clowns.