It got a quarter-page in this week’s Time magazine.
Jon Stewart went on Nightline some months ago. Here’s a Cafe Society thread that talked about it. It also contains a transcript of that show.
IIRC, Koppel came on the Daily Show after that incident and was very funny. They joked about Koppel punching Stewart. Water under the bridge. I think there is mutual respect there, but Ted doesn’t want John telling him how to do his job, understandably. IIRC, Koppel was under quite a lot of fire earlier this year (WRT getting Nightline renewed) and perhaps he is staking out his turf.
The more I think about it, the more I think that Stewart is in the line of Somerby of http://www.dailyhowler.com – it is all the fault of the Lazy Millionaire Host. It isn’t that these shows aren’t valuable, it isn’t that we should ban the party mouthpieces from the show. It is just that these anchors get paid millions of dollars, and for that money, they should at least be prepared. So when John O’Neill or Donna Brazile or Marc Racicot or Terry McAullife advances a bullshit statistic or a fact, the host should be there to call it as such. Not depend on the other mouthpiece to call it, but to rebut it on the spot. This is as much as Stewart said on Nightline and on Hardball.
It doesn’t work to have the other mouthpiece rebut the bullshit of the first. Both sides want to play offense, so this means each mouthpiece advances his or her bit and usually ignores the facts advanced by the other. We saw this in the presidential debate. I am a Kerry supporter, and every time Bush said “most liberal senator” or “voted to increase taxes 98 times” or “voted against it before he voted for it” and so forth, I yelled at the TV for Kerry not to let it stand. More than not, Kerry just left them lying there, because he needed time to advance his own carefully crafted “facts” into the debate and chose against lengthy point-by-point rebuttals. Leave that to the news fact checkers, who seem to be out only for the debates. The news shows are just like the debates, but the mouthpieces have full knowledge that not only will they never be called on their BS, but there is no second-line, widely accepted fact checking to ever counter their points. So left unchecked, we get these guys basically reading off the day’s talking points into the camera.
The hosts of these programs should be prepared to be real-time fact checkers. It doesn’t take all that much, really. Read the 9/11 Commision report. Read the Annenberg factcheck.org site and spinsanity.org. This is what Stewart (and many others) clamor for. Then we can finally have real debates on these shows.
Did anybody watch Daily Show last night? Stewart commented on his attack. My favorite moment (I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have a transcript):
None of which detracts from the point that Tucker Carlson is devilishly cute when he’s so obviously flustered and keeps saying “butt boy”.
I’ve never had a knack for reading people. I thought he looked…er…emphatic, if a person can actually look emphatic. He seemed focussed and as though he was maintaining an attitude of extra-seriousness, which seemed reasonable to me considering that he’s a comedian and would want to be over-serious & passionate to make clear that he wasn’t joking.
But, like I said, I’m not particularly adroit at reading people.
I just saw the internet version of this. Stewart seemed frustrated like a parent would be with kids who just weren’t getting the point. I thought it was frankly rude of Carlson* to say, in effect, that Stewart needed to be funny. I didn’t feel that Stewart was being rude until he took that personal shot at Carlson at the end, which was a small minded attempt to get the last word in (I don’t watch Crossfire as a general rule, so have no idea if Carlson is, in reality, always a dick.)
*I have mixed feelings on Carlson, he seems intelligent and has written some very interesting magazing pieces but comes across as a bit of a prick on the air.
I’m also curious: Is this Carlson guy really a dicknose all the time? The overgrown prepschooler look would certainly seem to indicate he wants to project an air of stodgy (and unintentionally sophomoric) self-righteousness; but with only this episode to judge by (I never watch), it’s impossible to say if he’s always such a little snot-nosed bitch or he just gets snotty when feeling a blade in the viscera.
You know, I think I had a similar impression. I know he intended to be serious, but I think going on live TV with the intention to confront someone is pretty scary. Who knows what will happen. What a fight-or-flight situation. I think toward the end he was really angry though.
I wish people would stop saying this just because it makes me feel sexually confused. I don’t want to be the type of person who fantasizes about abusing a guy who’s tied up and gagged with a bowtie. No matter how hot that might be. I think he must be really cute when he cries though. :o 
Tucker Carlson is actually a bright, funny, moderate conservative. He has a ‘serious’ show on PBS, and it’s pretty good. He’s sort of in the Jonah Goldberg mold of conservative pundits. A bit irreverant, sees the absurdity in things, etc.
For what it’s worth, I thought Stewart was being a jerk, and arrogant to boot. Who annointed him the police of TV? Going on Crossfire just so you can harangue the hosts about the way they run their show is just rude.
And his, "we’re only a lil’ ole’ fake news show’ schtick is getting really old, because he applies it selectively. John Kerry can come on his show and get thrown softball questions for fifteen minutes. Then a Republican comes on, and Stewart attacks him mercilessly, and if the guy actually tries to give a serious response, he gets interrupted with jokes. If someone gets offended they get the, “Hey, it’s all just comedy!” routine.
Jon Stewart is one of my favorite comedians, and an incredibly naturally funny guy. That’s why it’s doubly sad to see him moving into the Al Franken/Michael Moore camp of formerly funny people who take themselves WAY too seriously.
And the audience agrees - ratings for the Daily Show in the last period show that he’s lost 12% of his audience. He’ll lose more if he keeps turning the Daily Show into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic party.
I disagree. Stewart was calling for a real debate, by which (I think) he meant calm, reasoned discussion, respectful exchanges of ideas between people who may consider themselves opponents, but not enemies. He objects to the pro-wrestling style of “debate” which parodies real debate but doesn’t enlighten its viewers, only confirms their prejudices.
He flat-out said that not only are shows like Crossfire (which, he pointed out on TDS Monday, is named after gun battles in which innocent civilians are killed!) not valuable, they are hurting the public.
Heh. I actually saw Tucker Carlson on C-SPAN saying that people on television talk shows are, in real life, even more like what they seem to be on television. (Did that make sense? That was a hard sentence to put together.)
I’m confused. Is it such a given that there can be no honest, incisive debate on CNN that the only question left to ask is what’s the biggest reason Jon Stewart has no right to talk? I haven’t seen anyone explain why it’s okay for Crossfire to suck or to show how Crossfire doesn’t suck.
I regularly watch both The Daily Show and Crossfire and like both of them. I like Tucker Carlson - he seems to be more willing than most to say he doesn’t agree with particular talking points.
With that said, I think you mischaracterize Stewart’s actions. Watch any interview he’s had with John McCain. They’re just as non-confrontational as the Kerry interview. From what I see, it’s just when someone starts spouting pre-digested talking points that he starts going after them. The interview with Bonilla from TX is a good example (no link; I’m sure it’s available somewhere), where they were discussing the “most liberal” tag the Republicans endlessly recite.
I’m not claiming anything about Stewart’s personal beliefs or how he leans politically; just that to flat out call him a Democratic shill is an (IMHO) expression of one’s own personal bias.
You mean like how Ed Koch came on last night to talk about his children’s book and instead spent several minutes endorsing Bush for President (and misrepresenting the Halperin memo, IMO), and Jon Stewart did nothing but ask polite questions? The most “merciless” of which was “Does it bother you that Al Qaeda is in 60 countries?” Or do you mean the softball questions he gave to Ann Coulter when she appeared on his show way back when?
Come to think of it, just what Republican guests are you referring to? The only example I can think of is that Congressman who gave Jon Stewart the baby booties with “GOP” written on the bottoms (can’t remember his name), when Jon Stewart had the temerity to point out the facts which debunked the “First and fourth most liberal senators” talking point.
Oh yeah, that’s him. It would help if I actually read the post right above mine, wouldn’t it? (Smacks self in forehead…)
As I said in a post a couple above this one, I like and watch both The Daily Show and Crossfire. I don’t think Crossfire sucks, and here’s why:
[ol]
[li]You know what you’re getting when you tune in. No claims of “Fair and Balanced” viewpoints. Total partisanship, but equally distributed.[/li][li]It really is political theatre. Which is entertaining. (Note that I’m not saying it should replace actual debate, which is Stewart’s point.)[/li][li]I think it’s inevitable for this type of debate to spring from the two-party, adversarial political system. This is bumper-sticker politics in distilled form. To quote Ray Davies, “give the people what they want.”[/li][li]If you subscribe to 3, then the hope is that the hosts and guests are rhetorically agile enough to phrase questions or answers in such a way as to demolish a talking point with the same.[/li][/ol]
All in all, I agree with Stewart. It’s a damn shame the media (recently, anyway) is so bad at “hard-hitting journalism”. At the same time, I think Crossfire does what it sets out to do - be an entertaining, topical, equally slanted megaphone.
Well, people tune in to Fear Factor, and watching a politician deal with real probing questions is more or less equivalent to watching a regular person getting dunked into a tub of earthworms, or whatever.
If you remember, Stewart gave him multiple chances of being honest about this. He refused, so Stewart lowered the boom. The Republicans have been much more careful since, and have sent people who at least haven’t lied. I’ve seen an article about something else that called Bonilla one the recognized stupidest person in Congress, by the way.
I was surprised that Bush brought up the “most liberal” senator nonsense in the debate - but now I know why he won’t go on the Daily Show.
Aw, Sam Stone’s just still pissed at Jon Stewart for skewering Sam’s favorite bunch of kooks, the Swift Bullshitters for Bush. 
Of course, they deserved to be skewered, and Jon did a terrific job at it – not that you’d get Sam to admit either point…
Well, there was this guy: Stephen F. Hayes. Jon was just merciless, but the guy deserved it. And to his credit, Hayes took it pretty damn well.