cross/ire
By now I imagine a lot of you have seen the clip of Jon Stewart on Crossfire. If not, Wonkette's got a list of places to download it here. For all of you Luddite blog addicts, a transcript is here.
In a nutshell, Stewart took the offensive against Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, explaining calmly but relentlessly -- and not in a particularly funny way -- that he thinks their show detracts from the public discourse in this country by reducing serious debate to a childish partisan caricature. The money shot: calling Tucker Carlson a dick.
To be fair, all the available evidence suggests that Tucker Carlson probably is a dick (although he's also an entertaining writer -- make sure to read this article about his trip to Liberia with Al Sharpton, which is hilarious while simultaneously confirming his dickular status). I mean, come on. I've met exactly one person in my life with a daily bow tie habit who wasn't at least borderline detestable. Still, something about Stewart's appearance doesn't quite sit right.
I had a conversation with Mark about this earlier today. He didn't care for the performance at all -- Stewart was very confrontational, rude and fundamentally unpleasant. That's a discordant way to find the gray-haired embodiment of boyish charm. Mark also thought that Carlson and Begala scored some points when they pointed out that Stewart lobs softball questions to his lefty guests; who's he to be throwing stones at his media colleagues? Given the Daily show's frequent, serious sit-downs with people like Richard Clarke and Ken Mehlman, the excuse that the Stewart is just an entertainer obviously rings a bit false.
Still, I think this misses the point of the appearance. First, the "you suck at journalism, too" line of argumentation, while not meritless, is still weak. The example provided during the show was John Kerry -- but of course John Kerry gets softball questions. George Bush would, too. Guests of that stature are huge scores for the show's bookers, and they'll be treated with kid gloves as a result. You won't see Tom Cruise being asked the Really Tough Questions, either.
When the Daily Show has political guests with less star power, the interviews really are informative. Stewart's got a partisan slant, of course, and that renders his interviews with conservative guests somewhat more combative than those with whom he agrees, but the interviews are of a consistently high quality. The point is that, despite the Kerry example, Comedy Central's fake-news flagship consistently does contain more news content than shows like Crossfire.
But this also misses the point. I'm not sure whether Jon Stewart really thinks he can save the media. He's probably too smart for that. I suspect he was just trying to save himself.
The Daily Show is a consistently brutal satire of the media. So why is Peter Jennings palling around with Jon Stewart? Why is Stewart on the cover of Newsweek? Shouldn't mainstream journalists be, I don't know, kind of pissed off that this guy has made a career out of exposing journalism's pretentions, epidemic frivolousness and omnipresent hypocrisy?
I guess the answer is no, as long as they can laugh along and assume he's talking about other, unspecified journalists: "Sure, the people on competing network X do nothing but peddle trash to the lowest common denominator. But I won't rest until we know the real truth about Laci Peterson."
I think Stewart probably realized he was slowly but surely becoming a source of absolution for the media, a comic ombudsman that can entertain even as he's ignored. For Jon Stewart to have the folks he skewers laugh along with him must be infuriating, and it threatens his credibility as a comic -- and if the Daily Show loses its credibility, its clever cynicism will wear thin extremely quickly.
If the shame Stewart & company apply to the media was producing results it'd be one thing, but in the absence of progress the increasingly cozy relationship between the Daily Show and the real media can only end with Stewart and company as hypocrites. Everyone sells out eventually, but I think Jon Stewart has finally decided the TV journalism establishment can't offer anything he wants. If they're too dumb to realize they should be embarassed and ashamed, he'll just have to start clubbing them over the head until they do.
Maybe this is far too much grand theorizing; almost certainly, in fact. Maybe Stewart was having a lousy day and decided to take it out on Tucker Carlson. If the option were available to me, I probably would, too. But either way: I think this appearance was more about Jon Stewart than it was about Crossfire.
Comments
Stewart was displaying some symptoms of, well ... losing it. I think he needs to take a vacation.
And even if you can't make the point the first go 'round, the second or even the third, you don't resort to calling your host a "dick".
I'd rate it a meltdown.
I'd rate it hilarious!
What good is a comic if he can't go on a "serious" show and start calling people dicks? Not in My America!
Yeah, i agree with Susan. That was hilarious. Rude, but hilarious. They were asking for it.
I think that's an interesting theory you have Tommy. I don't know when this interview originally aired, but The Daily Show's web site is currently running a 10 minute interview of Bill O'Reilly by Jon Stewart, and it is basically a love-fest. And pretty funny at the end (O'Reilly calls Stewart a pinhead). That seems to at least partially contradict your argument.
Although I disagree with him politically, I think Stewart has a valid argument. His method of arguing may have been questionable -- going on someone else's show and pointing out what [he thinks] they are doing wrong seems nasty.
As I understand it, Stewart thinks the role of the media in the political process has eroded in the last few years. Stewart seemed to have two problems with Crossfire and its kin. As a preliminary matter, the media plays a vital role in our democracy by questioning the decisions of our government and questioning the rationale[s] behind them. This brings to light and into focus things that governmental officials would rather leave unknown or not well known. Stewart's first point is that the media have stopped holding our politicians' feet the fire and forcing them to answer the hard questions. Look at how useless the debates were for true debate. Even where there are direct questions and followups, the candidates still avoid answering the hard questions -- particularly those that their focus groups have told them are lose-lose. A valid counterargument is that you may never get our elected officials to give you a straight answer when they don't want to. However, pushing them so far as to quit an interview prematurely or say, "I refuse to answer that question," says quite a bit in and of itself.
Stewart's second point stems from the first. The right-left polarization is a commodity in the current "debate" shows on the news networks. Most of these shows either have hosts or call guests that are at extreme ends of the political spectrum. When you put them together, you get a lot of yelling, interrupting, and one-liners. Arguments are elided so quickly and thoroughly that a rationale person can only pick a winner based on image or preconceived political leanings. Stewart seems to think that the American people lose in the end, and I tend to agree. Information and political rationales remain obscured to the public, and elected officials cannot be held politically accountable for their decisions. Whether you agree with Stewart's method is another story altogether.
Carlson's arguments about Stewart's show are weak at best. Bottom line: The Daily Show is a comedy show that parodies the news. While interesting questions are sometimes asked and answered, the show is parody. Any argument requiring the show to be serious news requires the arguer to assume that the show is serious. Maybe my last assertion is wrong. Edwards did declare his candidacy for President on The Daily Show. Does anyone else recall Edwards saying that he would decline any offer to become VP candidate at the same time?
Mark, I think you're right that my theory has some holes. Clearly, when Jon Stewart plays serious news man he's trying to increase his credibility. So I think he may actually be trying to save American democracy. It's possible his head has gotten that big.
Personally, I think O'Reilly counts as a big enough get that he earns the kid-gloves treatment. He's a star. I saw that interview -- it originally aired at least a week and a half ago, I believe. Stewart did ask him some good questions (and got good answers), though. He didn't try to kill him over, say, the stuff in Franken's book, but he asked real questions. And it was a favor-in-kind, since Stewart had just been a guest on "The Factor" (hahahaha).
But I agree, he was being buddy-buddy with a guy he probably finds detestable -- certainly O'Reilly is a more malevolent force than the useless but not-deliberately-evil Crossfire. I guess my theory kind of hangs on Stewart having decided to change his mind very recently. I wouldn't be surprised -- he's been getting lots of adoring press with the book release, and finding myself pals with Bill O'Reilly is certainly the kind of thing that would send me into a personal bout of soul-searching. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.
Justin, I agree with pretty much everything you said above.
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