Sometimes it's a mistake to lighten things up.

It sounded like a great idea: Take one of political TV's great inquisitors, and pair him with the media worlds best improviser to see if you can get a new school Pat Paulsen vibe going on. But the fact that most people reading this will probably have to be told who Pat Paulsen is, should have provided a clue to how dangerous this lark really was.

Still, I give credit to Meet the Press host Tim Russert for giving us a break from all the nonsense about Turkey possibly invading Iraq, the then-upcoming GOP debate in Orlando, or even the North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate who has come out as a gay man.

Instead, we got an increasingly unfunny exchange between he and Comedy Central icon Stephen Colbert Sunday, proving that -- funny as he is in his own element -- sometimes Colbert's shtick runs cold outside the confines of his sidesplitting Colbert Report.

Judge for yourself: