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I had a snack all ready and was fully expecting some version of an
interview from his hysterical fake-news program, Comedy Central’s ‘The
Daily Show’.
Instead, America’s best fake-journalist, Jon Stewart, began laying
into both Tucker Carlson, the boyish right-winger on CNN’s ‘Crossfire’,
and Paul Begala, the show’s voice from the left.
Stewart set the tone early, telling the hosts ‘Crossfire’ wasn’t
a ‘bad’ show as he has publicly said; instead it was ‘hurting
America’ by pretending to be a ‘debate show’ while pandering to
ignorance and sensationalism. He called them both ‘partisan hacks’,
begged them to stop and do their jobs, insulted Carlson’s trademark
bow-tie and, and as the show faded to commercial, called him a ‘dick’.
My wife and I periodically shot the same look we had when Janet Jackson’s
wardrobe malfunctioned and gave us a too-quick look at one of her boobs,
‘Did you see that?’. Once the disbelief subsided, we realized Stewart
was there to slam ‘Crossfire’, not to praise it. His somewhat
disorganized, yet crushingly accurate attack, left Begala and Carlson
utterly speechless and blubbering and us in stitches.
Between bouts of laughter, though, was a powerful indictment of
corporate media, abrogated responsibility, and media mendacity. Stewart’s
comments were essentially non-partisan and directed at shout-shows like
‘Crossfire’ in general. But his dander was most clearly up when
Carlson, trying to get Stewart to play nice, embarrassed himself beyond
repair by confronting Stewart with puffball questions Stewart had
addressed to Democratic candidate John Kerry when Kerry recently appeared
on ‘The Daily Show’.
Carlson chastised Stewart for squandering a prime opportunity to ask a
Presidential candidate some tough questions. Maybe Republican
conservatives are immune to irony, but Stewart certainly isn’t. Try as
he might, he just couldn’t get Carlson to see it. Granted, Stewart didn’t
come right out and say, ‘your show is a lie and a farce, you should
start doing your fucking jobs, you whores’, but he certainly dropped
enough hints for them to figure it out on their own.
Since you, Tucker, and other so-called ‘journalists’ are so
clueless, allow me to explain. Jon Stewart is a FAKE newsperson; you are
supposed to be a REAL one. Thus, it is YOU who have obligation to inform
Americans and provide balanced analysis on the issues of the day; Stewart’s
only obligation is to make me laugh while you do it. For you to insist
that he take seriously a responsibility he has never had and in the same
breath, act as though you, the purportedly true ‘journalist’, have no
responsibility but to provide ‘theatre’ (as Stewart put it), is the
finest in pure horseshit.
It’s little wonder indeed that even though Stewart’s audience may
be young and stoned, they’re still more informed than the largely
brain-dead crowd that watches mainstream network or cable news (and that
includes FOX, CNN, MSNBC, and all the other bogus ‘news’ networks).
Stewart’s contempt was palpable in his ‘I don’t’ response to
Carlson’s question about his thoughts on Bill O’Reilly’s ‘vibrator
flap’ and his ‘I won’t be your monkey’ response to Carlson’s
plea to please, please, please, ‘be funny’.
Monday afternoon had the hacks right back at it. Carlson gave an
interview expressing his disappointment that Stewart had ‘sold out’
(don’t know what he calls what he himself has done). Then, on Monday’s
‘Crossfire’ shout-fest, they showed a letter calling Stewart ‘overrated
and overhyped’, criticizing his suggestion that ‘Crossfire’ viewers
are too stupid to see past the bullshit to the news. That the letter was
written by a Canadian seems not to have caused a blip on the Irony Meter.
James Carville pooh-poohed Stewart’s comments while Bob Novak
faux-indignantly called Stewart ‘uninformed’ (again, not a peep from
the Irony Meter; is this thing on?).
Couple things are for sure, though. ‘Crossfire’ was never better
and Jon Stewart puts all the hacks to shame. They need to have Stewart
back on with Carville and Novak there. Like he’s done dozens of times on
‘The Daily Show’, there’s no doubt he’d call Novak a ‘douchebag’.
Thanks, Jon, for exposing these boring twits in front of millions of
viewers.
Allen Snyder can be reached at asnyder111@hotmail.com
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