I agree. He did a wonderful job going toe to toe with Kerry, especially since Cavett was so obviously biased.
As the old adage goes..."Be careful what you wish".
I read somewhere (probably FR) that something happened to him in the late Seventies that made him swear off politics forever.
He may no longer be a "friendly".
Yet for all his want of the spotlight, Kerry avoided public debates with other veterans. On seven occasions, by July 1971, he had refused to allow other veterans to challenge him publicly on television, even when CBS and NBC offered to host formal debates. He relented only when Dick Cavett, who had made him a national figure not long before, agreed to terms Kerry found advantageous. Even then, with Kerry holding all the advantages, Boston Globe political columnist David Nyhan observed, his "scrappy little" opponent, John O'Neill, "was all over Kerry like a terrier, keeping the star of the Foreign Relations Committee hearings ... off balance."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37453