WATCH: Michelle Malkin tries to goad James Carville into a fight on Hannity

On Wednesday evening's show, Fox News host Sean Hannity had Democratic strategist James Carville and conservative social-media mogul Michelle Malkin on to discuss the IRS scandal. It was about as calm a discussion as you'd expect.

Carville seemed to throw Malkin off by agreeing that the IRS targeting of conservatives is an outrage that needs to be investigated — prompting an expression of exaggerated shock from Malkin. But still, he said, it's far-fetched that the White House is involved. Malkin, naturally, disagreed, arguing that the Obama White House is just perfecting the tactics of Carville's old boss, "notorious witch-hunter-in-chief" Bill Clinton. Carville laughed and called Malkin's dredging up the 1990s "stale."

Hannity then turned the topic to Obama's tapping Susan Rice as his national security adviser, despite Republican opposition to the U.N. ambassador over her initial public comments on the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. Carville agreed that the selection of Rice means the president doesn't care what either he or Hannity thinks about his top national security aide. "He's got a qualified person that he likes a lot, and he wants her in that position."

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That was too much for Malkin, who retorted that the selection of Rice is a "middle finger to all of the victims of the Benghazi disaster," and accused Carville of once dismissing the attack as "nothing." At one point, Carville, trying to answer Hannity's question, asked Malkin: "Are you gonna allow me to talk or are you just gonna interrupt me the whole time?"

You may not learn much from the exchange, and it probably won't change your mind on anything. But as far as political gladiatorial combat goes, it's a good example of all sides playing their part pretty well as they fight to a draw. Enjoy.