William Safire is a brilliant observer of the political scene, a legendary speechwriter and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Your average Daily Show viewer might – just might – know him as the author of Nixon Vice-President Spiro Agnew’s famous putdown of the press as “nattering nabobs of negativism.” A fact that apparently so enamored Jon Stewart, he was probably an easy booking on the show. However as a guest, Safire na-bobbled the assignment quite thoroughly.

Plugging an update of his classic book, “Safire’s Political Dictionary,” his exchanges with host Jon Stewart had as much electricity as your standard dictionary. When telling a story, he wandered all over the place, taking forever to make a simple point. Stewart was working overtime, desperately trying to turn the interview into something entertaining with barrages of gags, even interrupting and trying to save Safire’s creaky comments at times.

Further proof that Safire was in the wrong place at the wrong time was his failure to actually promote his book with any conviction. It took Stewart piling on superlatives at the end to get the message out. Clearly being a master of the printed word isn’t enough to carry the day under the relentless glare of TV. Bill stick to the typewriter…er, uh…computer!

There’s a reason host Jon Stewart has the ergonomic Aeron flight seat and the guests have an ordinary office chair: he doesn’t want his targets to get too comfortable.

Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska looked crisp and composed when he showed up to plug his book, “America: Our Next Chapter.” He did get a couple of uncharacteristically humorous zingers in while Jon wasn’t looking, but as entertainment, he had the misfortune to be a Republican who agrees with Jon on the folly of the Iraq war, so the sharpness of comic arrows that typically fly back and forth during a Daily Show conservative target was blunted by Jon’s eager nodding at his anti-war opinions. Without the sparring, the interview just fell flat.

Opinions were also at the heart of Sen. Hagel’s biggest problem on the show: he voiced a lot of them without interesting stories or new perspectives to back them up. Then there was his misreading of the audience for The Daily Show. Anyone interested in the ideas in his book would recognize the appeal right away. But this is a comedy show and the audience who shows up for the laughs, so viewers need to be seduced by the trademark humorous interplay, of which there was sadly little.

Two Whispers and two cardinal Guest Whisperer rules: have a pocketful of short, unexpected stories to hook listeners and viewers into your cause; and know the audience you’re facing and how to engage them.