Judd on Jon Stewart on Crossfire

Judd questions the praise given to Jon Stewart lately for his appearance on Crossfire (also check out this debriefing (MOV) on the Daily Show and some of the Crossfire response):

[More:]

While I give credit to Jon for sticking to his guns, I don't see why everyone is praising him so much. I thought he sounded confused and didn't make many important points. In fact, it seemed a little like he was on drugs. I know he's an intelligent and articulate guy, so I can only guess it was part of his plan, but I just think he missed a golden opportunity to take it to an egotistical ideolog. Al Franken would never have let that happen!

I think the dynamics of the show were ruling the moment there... that is, all three of the people involved (Stewart, Begala and that Carlson bastard) are highly skilled at dialogue dancing; that is, via being hosts of live (or psuedo-live) TV shows, they each know how to control dialogue in such a way that they get to make their point when they want to. The reason they did not discuss much of true substance was precisely this dialogue-dance coupled with the fact that Stewart is conscious that calling them out on their own show is quite rude (a social norm, no?) which extended the delivery of the "your show is bad" remark and subsequent criticisms.

In the end he did make important points:

• That Crossfire is bad.
• That it's hosts are political hacks.
• That America really needs decent dialogue between the two polar political persuasions.
• That Crossfire, by claiming to do this but not doing it, is "hurting America."
• That he, as a former Crossfire viewer, will no longer watch it.
• That Tucker Carlson, while smart enough to tie a bow tie, is a dick. (Is he not?)

In fact, I think all of this is closely related to my post over at the Quality of Information blog on the Quality of Information on the Daily Show. There I asked if it was reasonable to rely on the Daily Show for news. I've been thinking about this more lately and I still feel that there is quality, source-backed news on the Daily Show. Just because it is more entertaining than your average politics-with-interviews show, doesn't make it unreliable. To boot, Jon Stewart has never claimed that he is a serious political commentator... I would say that, at least on his show, he's more of a one-shot kind of guy who makes serious political points in one-sentence barbs, usually funny, meant to highlight a particular part of an issue. The longest period of sustained discourse that I've heard from Stewart was this recent appearance on NPR's Fresh Air. Even in that interview, he used every opportunity to "make a funny" but emphasized that the best way to really hit home was to take normal news and highlight absurdity via "fake news". Here's a great quote from that interview:

Fresh Air Host: I guess what a producer of a talk show, or Crossfire, might say is, 'In the great marketplace of ideas, our solution is to provide competition. If one side has phony talking points, the other side is always right there, doesn't that work?"

Jon Stewart: It doesn't seem to be... In the marketplace of ideas, from what I understand, there aren't only two products available. That's like saying that fair competition is soda machines with only Coke and Pepsi. It's not the case that it is a free market of ideas... The other side of it is: what is the expertise of the anchor? What is your role then? That's like saying a referee for a football game is just there to make sure that no one dies. There should be actual truths, and someone should be there to help arbitrate that. And it seems to be that media should be the forum for that. For instance, on Crossfire, I'm not sure what those guys are doing other than egging there own side on. If anything, I think that puts out misinformation, or disinformation because it vouches for deception... by allowing it on television, you're vouching for it. You're saying, 'we've done a background check, these people are ok.'

Judd continues:

Bill O'Reilly also recently came on The Daily Show, and I think Jon missed another golden opportunity to ask some serious questions. I was frustrated watching the clip, because when you think about it, both O'Reilly's and Stewart's shows are interview shows, but O'Reilly uses his interviews to do most of the talking, and then he came on The Daily Show, and again, Stewart let him do most of the talking!

I must admit, here I thought Stewart could have set the funny-business by the side and actually gotten into it. Stewart makes a lot of highly-incendiary remarks against the likes of O'Reilly. For O'Reilly to come on the show and for the two of them to not address either of their criticisms of each other was strange. I guess they had to keep it funny ultimately on the Daily Show. Has Stewart ever been on The Factor (or whatever O'Reilly's show is)? As that is not a comedy show, it would probably be more like the Crossfire appearance. What did O'Reilly have to say about the Crossfire appearance?