The crossfire after "Crossfire"
Comedian Jon Stewart's beat down of the bow-tied Tucker Carlson on CNN's "Crossfire" last Friday touched off an intriguing mix of reactions among bloggers.

Gerard Van der Leun of American Digest doesn't think much of the dueling heads of "Crossfire," or of Stewart.

"I actually caught Jon Stewart's on-air evisceration of 'Crossfire' last week, and I have to admit I enjoyed the discomfort and confusion he brought to the dual tools of that broadcast. At the same time I also noted what a large, self-impressed tool Stewart has become."

It seems that the heart of the matter for Van der Leun is what he imagines to be Stewart's privileged lifestyle off the air.

"I don't know about you but my gorge rises when a TV personality who's made his bones with long ironic sighs and sideglances starts to speak phrase like 'We need you to be honest!' And that was only the center cut from Stewart's Tripe Store. I was especially taken by Stewart's reference to himself as one of the guys who is out 'mowing his lawn' while 'Crossfire' fails to protect the Republic. Hey, I need Stewart to be honest. The closest people like Stewart come to mowing their lawn is telling their personal assistant to drive to some Southern California crossroads and hire an illegal alien to work the Weedwhacker."

Bill Ardolino of InDC Journal offered a more substantive take on Stewart's allegations of full-tilt partisan hackdom in the mainstream media. Ardolino has no great love for Stewart, either, labeling much of his Daily Show material "a smirking, incredibly shallow read of the issues surrounding [the Iraq] war every bit as harmful as Michael Moore's hullabalooed love letter to Leni Riefenstahl." But Ardolino raises a valid point about Stewart's own influence and potential responsibility to the political dialogue.

"While Stewart's recent evisceration of the Crossfire hacks was great fun, it's also tainted by the fact that he was throwing stones from a glass mansion. Stewart likes to slide out of public responsibility for accuracy by citing the fact that the Daily Show is a comedic farce, but that defense is undermined by the fact that his show has a very large practical influence, his partisanship is overt and pointed, his analysis is frustratingly superficial, and if everything is such a silly joke ... he wouldn't become angry, serious or aggressively condescending during certain political interviews. You can't have it both ways, Stewart. It's fine for you to take sides, but you're drubbing of Begala and Carlson marks you as a hypocrite."

One wonders what Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein thinks of the notion of "overt and pointed partisanship," "frustratingly superficial analysis," and "everything as such a silly joke." He aims for barbed political comedy himself and is sometimes quite entertaining, though he doesn't much like it when his team is on the receiving end. He responded to the crossfire by offering CNN's hapless bow-tie boy "9 snappy comebacks" to Stewart's comment, "You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."

"1. It's genetic, the big dick thing. My father was hung like a horse.
"2. You know who's funny? That Craig Kilborn. Now he's funny.
"3. Yeah, I'm a dick, blah blah blah. But tell me -- how is Janeane Garofalo in the sack? Wild?
"4. I really like the touch of gray you've got going on, by the way. Very Harry Reasoner.
"5. That Craig Kilborn. Christ, I'm still laughing...!
"6. So. Are you going to tell America about the time Bob Dole bitchslapped your shortperson's ass on the set, or should I?
"7. Incidentally, I spit in your complimentary beverage. Just so you know.
"8. Any truth to the rumor you and Lewis Black like to toss each others' salads?
"9. Well, it could be worse. I could be Jewish."

And the Stewart-Carlson dustup sparked a rare but colorful burst of cognitive dissonance inside the right-wing citadel, Free Republic.

clintonh8r: "[The Daily Show] is a big part of the trivialization and bitchiness of American politics that he's apparently (I'm not near a TV) talking about. I guess he doesn't really get it..."

glock rocks: "Stewart called Carlson a dick on the way to commercial."

staytrue: "CNN is probably reading stewart the riot act and threatening legal action as we speak."

get'email: "Tucker Carlson IS a dick."

RedBloodedAmerican: "We need people like John where he is. It's helps to remind us why we fight."

charles giteau: "If Jon Stewart is the reason we fight, we may need to reevaluate our goals. Stewart is the best talking head on TV. He points out the absurd on both sides. And so what if he's voting for Kerry? My mother is voting for Kerry, should I take the fight to her too?"

FreddomSurge: "Mom's gotta go sometime."

demnomo: "I agree with Stewart -- the show is a boring sham. I watched a couple of programs a while ago, thought the talking head hosts were lame, and I have not watched the contrived garbage that they spew since. Of course, I read about what someone said on the show now and then on this forum. That's about it."

omniscient: "One Crossfire is worth a thousand Daily Shows. I'm glad Carlson brought up what a suck-up job Stewart did with the Kerry interview."

navycorpsman: "Stewart's show is funny when politics is not the subject. Shows like Crossfire, Hannity and Colmes, et al, all suck and offer nothing but bile and useless spin..."

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