Jon Stewart is on CNN's Crossfire right now and he's laying the hatchet down on the show, on both Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala who both deserve it. He's trying to be serious, and they're trying to be funny, thinking he's joking. I don't know if CNN will replay this show, but I hope someone will. Stewart is calling the show out on the carpet, saying they are misleading the public's trust because they're not the debate show they claim to be but instead are simply partisan hackery, and of course he's right. Meanwhile, Carlson is trying to criticize him for not asking John Kerry tough questions, and as usual, Stewart comes back with the fact that Crossfire is on CNN while his show's lead-in are puppets making crank phone calls.
Stewart actually looks like he's in pain from his disappointment that Carlson and Begala just won't listen to his criticism. He says he's a huge fan of the show who is so frustrated with all of the media now that he just can't take it anymore, and in so doing, he speaks for most of us who want the newsmedia to be the protectors of the public trust rather than mouthpieces for the government or their side of any issue.
HOLY SHIT! Carlson just said that he thinks Stewart is more fun on his show, i.e., The Daily Show, and Stewart said back, "And I think you're as big a dick on your show as on any show." Carlson tried to do that playful I'm a TV comentator so I'll laugh it off thing, as they went to commercial.
To both Tucker and Paul: I think you're both intelligent guys who believe in what you're saying, but Stewart is far more honest a commentator than either of you could ever hope to be.
Someone get this whole show streaming online PLEASE!!!
UPDATE: For those of you who don't read comments, a guy named Jason was kind enough to let me know that the entire Jon Stewart segments from today's Crossfire are now available to stream on iFilm. This link will take you to the page. Seriously ... take 15-20 minutes to watch it. It's some of the best, most honest and direct mass media criticism you'll see anytime soon, and it's well worth your time.
UPDATE II: Unsurprisingly, the video is all over the web. God, how I love modern technology. 10 years ago, this never would have been ahppening, or at least not as quickly or with such relative ease. While the iFilm link above is a stream, you can download the whole thing as a file (a large one, mind you) from Random Foo and Media Matters too.
I caught this link over on Long Pauses blog. I haven't seen it yet (because its in realFu%@#$Audio) but I have to soon.
http://www.ifilm.com/filmdetail?ifilmid=2652831&htv=12
Posted by: Jason | Friday, October 15, 2004 at 11:57 PM
Also available here for download: http://randomfoo.net/?p=2004_10_00_archive.inc#crossfire ... rather than a stream in a tiny window w/ commercials (ifilm sucks)
Posted by: none | Sunday, October 17, 2004 at 09:57 PM
You can also go to the website cnn.com/crossfire and order a video copy of the crossfire episode from the transcripts section
Posted by: Jay | Monday, October 18, 2004 at 02:04 PM