As if we needed yet another reason that Bill O'Reilly needs to keep his mouth shut.

When Jon Stewart, host of the "The Daily Show," appeared on the Sept. 17 broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor," O'Reilly informed Stewart his viewers were nothing but "stoned slackers" and "dopey kids." O'Reilly's loose cannon remarks could not have been farther from the truth.

In two recent studies, "The Daily Show" viewers ranked among the top of their test classes. One study pitted Stewart's viewers against David Letterman's and Jay Leno's. Another found that watchers of the "The Daily Show" were more likely to have a college degree, and another found that the show's viewers were more knowledgeable than those who read a newspaper or watched broadcast news four or more days each week.

Although the "The Daily Show" is not a serious news source, it helps viewers to learn about the state of the nation and world as they chuckle from the safety of their sofas. Stewart, whose show recently won an Emmy, packages information in a viewer-friendly format. Making people learn while they are having fun is something few shows manage to do, least of all, "The O'Reilly Factor."

In addition to insulting "The Daily Show" viewers' mental ability, O'Reilly went on to say that the fact that Stewart had an affect on the election was scary. We, the citizens of the United States, are in the middle of an extremely important election. Jon Stewart has the ability to reach viewers and give them the gumption to get out and vote and, in a country that has seen an election won by a few hundred votes, any contribution to the movement to vote is important.

The next time O'Reilly makes an asinine remark, he had better do his homework. If he is not careful, someone - possibly a fun-loving talk show host on Comedy Central - might consider him to be the real danger to democracy.