TV: Jon Stewart on Crossfire

On Friday, Jon Stewart was the guest on CNN's alleged news debate program, Crossfire, hosted by Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala. And Stewart went apeshit on them.

Here's a transcript (thanks to Ian for the link). Oh, I wish all of you would read it, whether you be left, right, or totally apathetic in your politics. Because Stewart takes them to task. Stewart isn't mounting a partisan attack. He is genuinely outraged at Crossfire (and by extension, other non-hard-hitting news shows) that act as tools of the politicians of either side, parroting their party lines and press releases, rather than engaging in genuine, honest debate.

"It's hurting America," he tells them, and he's not wrong.

If you've seen the video (and there are plenty of places to download it already), it's just amazing how worked up Stewart gets. Because the Crossfire guys do exactly what he's accusing them of: they refuse to engage him in the debate. They refuse to step out of the "theater" Stewart says they're performing (STEWART: Now, this is theater. It's obvious. How old are you? CARLSON: Thirty-five. STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.... So this is theater.), and answer him in an honest fashion. They want him to play nice, and make jokes, and he's having none of it: "I'm not going to be your monkey."

Some more sample quotes:

STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery....
CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?
[...]
STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?

STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one.

And, when it's become clear Stewart is deadly sincere in his anger and outrage, and Carlson is on the defense:

CARLSON: What's it like to have dinner with you? It must be excruciating. Do you like lecture people like this or do you come over to their house and sit and lecture them; they're not doing the right thing, that they're missing their opportunities, evading their responsibilities?
STEWART: If I think they are.
CARLSON: I wouldn't want to eat with you, man. That's horrible.
STEWART: I know. And you won't.

Carlson's idea of turning the tables on Stewart is to point out how soft Stewart's interview with John Kerry was. Which, #1, is jealousy, plain and simple; Kerry won't come on Crossfire. And #2, is pure bullshit. As Stewart says:

You know, it's interesting to hear you talk about my responsibility... and maybe this explains quite a bit... is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.... But my point is this. If your idea of confronting me is that I don't ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we're in bad shape, fellas.

It's amazing to watch as Stewart becomes the most uncomfortable one on the show, as he comes to realize that he just can't get them to honestly address his questions, much like they can't get politicians to honestly answer their questions. (But, unlike him, they never even try, is his point.) He goes from humorous but aggressive, to genuinely angry, to a rueful resignation. He keeps trying, but he knows he won't get anything out of them: "Why can't we just talk -- please, I beg of you guys, please." And he finally just snaps at Carlson as they're going to commercial, "You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show." No, seriously, he actually says that. Yikes.

It's pure unstaged drama. It's one of the most contentious interviews I've ever witnessed. It's a fascinating, depressingly revealing, television moment. Jon Stewart: the fake anchor as the voice of reason.

Me Want

Pictures and Amazon links aplenty!



The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. Release date: September 20, 2004.



Stephen Lynch: Live at the El Rey. Release date: September 28, 2004. Stephen Lynch is one of the funniest comedians I've ever heard. His songs are generally very, very dirty, and very, very funny. Thanks to Dorian for making me aware of this one. And thanks to Reid for letting me know that the DVD does include possibly his funniest, most likely his darkest, and definitely his most controversial song ever, "Kill a Kitten". (Sample lyric: "To quote the Bible cuz that's where it's written/'If ye loveth Jesus ye must kill a kitten.'")



The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954. Release date: October, 2004.



George R. R. Martin: A Feast for Crows. Release date: possibly December 30, 2004. Or, considering that over the last four years a good half dozen release dates have come and gone: possibly never.

DVDs for Scrubs and Deadwood: not yet released. No current plans for release. Dammit.

TV: I'm Ted Koppel, and this.................................. is Nightline

A nagging question about last week's Democratic Convention coverage by The Daily Show was just cleared up for me on Dana Steven's Surfergirl TV blog (which I have under my links, yet I had to be made aware of the post by a link on Mark Evanier's blog... the blog world, it's all so incestuous, isn't it? Oh, man, I dread the Google searches that word is gonna net me. I've already gotten a hit from "women+and+dog+fantasies". Why, I don't know. But I digress).

My nagging question was, why didn't Ted Koppel show up for a scheduled interview on Thursday's Daily Show? Stewart didn't even mention Koppel's absence, which I thought was weird. Dana Stevens appears to have the answer: on Wednesday, Koppel spoke to Stewart on Nightline. And it appears Koppel does not much care for Stewart or The Daily Show. I wish I had seen that segment; it sounds like Koppel went off on Stewart, although it also sounds like Stewart held his own, and perhaps was even more gracious than Koppel deserved.

That's a shame, because I have a tremendous respect for Koppel, but he really doesn't get it. People aren't watching The Daily Show as a news source, as he accused Stewart, they're watching it (or at least I am) to get an alternate spin on the news. Stewart's coverage of the coverage of Al Sharpton's speech at the convention is a good example. Several media outlets treated the speech dismissively, writing Sharpton off as little more than a crank, with nothing of significance to say, with Chris Matthews for one actually interrupting the coverage of the speech because he felt it lacked importance. Stewart and The Daily Show, meanwhile, showed an impassioned Sharpton enthralling and galvanizing the convention with his words.

Is The Daily Show's take more reliable? Not necessarily -- but it is a different take, a take that can see past the old conventional wisdom of Sharpton as no more than a jogging suit-clad loudmouth, a take not bound by network sensibilities or political filtering. Even if you don't like Stewart's take (and certainly he -- and the show -- are more biased toward the left than not), you have to admit he often presents a candid, bullshit-free side to the news which other, "real" news outlets should be ashamed for neglecting.

MOVIES: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

I wasn't expecting much from a movie called Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and that's basically what I got. Maybe I should've expected even less. But how could I? It's a stoner comedy by the guy who directed Dude, Where's My Car?* That bar is not set very high. (Heh, I said "high".)

It's funny enough, with a few good extended laughs, but for some reason I had built myself up into thinking this would be some kind of comedy classic I needed to see in the theater. Partly due to a lot of hype on various blogs and review sites, partly from Ebert & Roeper giving it two thumbs up (I figured, if they recommend a stoner comedy, it must be very funny indeed). And it's just not that good.

Again, I'm aware that I'm talking about Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle here. And I'm aware that it seems a little silly to claim disappointment in a movie with that title. Still, I did expect more.

The two leads are definitely very funny people, especially John Cho as Harold. He's been good in a lot of different things, and he's good here. And the movie has a decent amount of comedy in it, as well as some excellent cameo appearances, including Fred Willard as an admissions officer at a medical school, Jamie Kennedy as a strange man in the forest, Ryan Reynolds as a male nurse, and, best of all, Neil Patrick Harris as himself. You can't resist laughing when Doogie Howser tells Harold and Kumar, "I'm tripping my balls off," or, "I left some love stains in the back seat." You just can't. Well, maybe you can, I don't know you very well. But I couldn't.

I think one of the problems I had with this movie may have come from the audience I saw it with. There were very few people to begin with, and the ones who were there were often uncomfortably silent while I was laughing, which made me a little self-conscious, and less willing to laugh. Not that the audience hated the movie, or never laughed; they just were fairly reserved for a raunchy, dopey, drug-related comedy like this one.

I still laughed a lot, though. It's not Anchorman funny, but it's still a good deal funnier than it has any right to be, and it actually makes a few clever observations about how Asians are perceived, and expected to behave, in America. It's a definite DVD rental.

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*One of my favorite jokes ever from The Daily Show was when Jon Stewart claimed the sequel would be named, Oh, There It Is.