“I’m going to do the same strategy that Obama took,” Stewart said in a live appearance today on “Good Morning America.”  “It’s the rope-a-dope but instead of letting your opponent punch himself out, you just get beat up.”

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“When I’m done with O’Reilly, he’ll convert to Judaism,” Stewart said.  “I will shut him down. This guy is going down.”

Despite the smack talk, Stewart says the debate between the two men, who have appeared on each other's shows 14 times in three years, is an example of an important element sometimes missing in U.S. politics, civil discourse.

“It’s always struck me as bizarre, this idea that the people that you disagree with, you should not ever engage with,” Stewart, 49, said.  “I have people in my family that make that guy [O'Reilly] look like Che Guevara and I love them.”

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----Katie Kindelan, ABC News Blogs, today