Vigilante bicyclists

Last night, Jon Stewart had some good verb-based mocking of McCain, built around Grampy McSame's varying tense-mood-aspect usage in describing our "success" in Iraq. Not up on his website yet, it looks like.

But Stewart did something bigger last night: He praised 'vigilante bicyclists', in particular the one who busted Robert Novak for a hit and run on a pedestrian in Washington.

Here's the story from politico.com:

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. N.W. when he witnessed the accident.

As he traveled east on K Street, crossing 18th, Bono said "a black Corvette convertible with top closed plows into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed into the windshield.”

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “This car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.

He said he chased Novak half a block down K Street, finally caught up with him and then put his bike in front of the car to block it and called 911. Traffic immediately backed up, horns blaring, until commuters behind Novak backed up so he could pull over.

Bono said that throughout, Novak "keeps trying to get away. He keeps trying to go.” He said he vaguely recognized the longtime political reporter and columnist as a news personality but could not precisely place him.

Finally, Bono said, Novak put his head out the window of his car and motioned him over. Bono said he told him that you can't hit a pedestrian and just drive away. He quoted Novak as responding: “I didn’t see him there.”

Can you imagine how terrifying Novak in a black 'vette would be bearing down on you as you cross a street? As Stewart said, "The only difference between Robert Novak's hit-and-run and his career is that this time someone stopped him."