Well, he’s not a mogul but he is powerful. Less than three months ago, Stewart appeared on CNN’s Crossfire and totally annihilated the show and its hosts. As I wrote here, Stewart should get an Emmy Award for the category of Best Guest on a Talking Head Show. There isn’t a real category for this, but maybe they should invent one. CNN president Jonathan Klein decided to end it rather than mend it, announcing yesterday that he pulled the plug on the program. Good riddance, I say. Klein: "I think he [Stewart] made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day." Capital Gang is also on the outs, which had some of the same partisan head-butting as Crossfire. Capital Gang was a better show. I’ll actually miss that one.
In the middle of the Stewart segment on Crossfire, there was a brief shot of Carlson in an unguarded moment, and the look on his face showed unmitigated anger, laced with a little bit of fear about his career prospects. I think he saw the future in that brief moment, and the future didn’t include him at CNN.
Good riddance to bad rubbish. I couldn’t stop laughing throughout Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire–Begala and Carlson, tools both, were reduced to spluttering or nervous tittering.
The Daily Show really is a national treasure. I know some conservatives who don’t like it because it regularly skewers Bush, but they have to understand that the main reason it does that is because Bush is in office and offers up plenty of, as Stewart put it, “absurdity” for him to use as material. Put Kerry in office and we’d have Lurch and Botox jokes for the next four years.
Wow. Think Tucker knows who his daddy is now?
Hmm, after reading the article, I see it’s not as wonderful as I thought. Carlson had already been hired away by MSNBC, so this was just a decision not to continue the show without him. Although I suppose the fact that they announced the cancellation so soon after his departure might mean that it was already on the chopping block and that’s what motivated him to leave.
Just saw Jon Stewart talking about it — he seemed a little dazed. “So punditry is like musical chairs, except there’s the same amount of chairs as people.”
And awesome! he had two little kids reading a transcript of Crossfire (Paul Begala and Robert Novack) and cracking up.
That was wild, Jeremy. Talk about a low blow, and god how I loved it!
he had two little kids reading a transcript of Crossfire (Paul Begala and Robert Novack) and cracking up.
Actually, that is a regular feature of the show and goes under the title of ‘Great moments in punditry’
‘…as read by children’, LJ. And it’s not nearly regular enough for me.
I certainly agree with the regular part (I’m getting to the age where regularity is a good thing) and here, it is on at 1 in the morning once a week (on CNN!). It’s the ‘international version’, so I’m not exactly sure how it differs. Stewart addresses the camera at the beginning and there is no studio audience and at the end, there is something called ‘A moment of zen’, which is usually when I’m nodding off, though ObWi has been keeping me up watching the food fights.
Not sure about the interpretation of the title, thought that the ‘as read by children’ is like Homer, as read by Fagles, but whatever it is called, it is pure comic genius.
Amen.
Tucker isn’t much of a conservative if you ask me. As I’ve seen someone elsewhere describe him — he’s a democrat’s idea of a conservative just like Alan Colmes is a republican’s idea of a liberal. Eh, Crossfire was behind the curve anyways. For some fun, check out the video of Frank Zappa on Crossfire back in the 80s here. Novak looks so young!
It’s the ‘international version’, so I’m not exactly sure how it differs.
The “International Edition” — which has maybe the best disclaimer in the history of television — is usually a single half-hour composite episode excerpting the best stories and segments (and Moments of Zen) of that week. It’s basically one-fourth of the real Daily Show, although it always feels like a little less than that to me.