Rally To Restore Sanity's Roots: Facing The Crossfire

For the next few days, we'll be celebrating the upcoming Rally To Restore Sanity/March To Keep Fear Alive by highlighting the ways in which "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" have long advocated reasonableness. You're invited to take part! Remember a "moment of sanity" that was dear to you? Send me an email and tell me about it!

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Armed with a slew of emailers who have discussed it, and having cited it twice myself, I think that today's as good a day as any to remind everyone of that time Jon Stewart appeared on the October 14, 2004 edition of CNN's televised temple of dumbed-down political discourse, Crossfire ("named after the stray bullets that hit innocent bystanders in a gang fight") and tore the show a new exit point for its alimentary canal. In a very contentious segment, Stewart put Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on blast -- referring to the co-hosts as "partisan hacks," and begging them to "stop hurting America."

The event rooted much of the dissent that the Rally is now facing, as well. Accused of confronting then-presidential candidate John Kerry with softball questions, Stewart countered by saying he was surprised that "the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity." To many media critics, this was a dodge that permanently defined what the Daily Show does. But to normal people, like emailer Larry Alessandrini relates to me today, "Stewart basically laid the seed for his upcoming Rally, the premise of which is that the most extreme, insane voices get all the media attention. His biting critique of Crossfire illustrated that without a sane, rational, objective press in this country, sanity and civil discourse has no chance."

In January of 2005, CNN canceled Crossfire. And nobody who's worth even a blessed minute of your time misses it.

WATCH:

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Comments

[boomcat44]

04:45 PM on 10/31/2010

I actually enjoyed Crossfire.
I agree that it was little more than 2-4 people just yelling at each other about whatever was making news at that time, but the trick was to ignore the nonsense, and sometimes, you could pick up something useful.
Granted, it didn't happen often.
But I still enjoyed it.

[Michael Mouton]

02:07 PM on 10/31/2010

Jon Stewart and Colbert are really untouchable. Even Gibbs said Obama is afraid to be interviewd by Colbert because guests never walk away looking good.

[erinker]

12:56 AM on 11/01/2010

LOL True.

[Dr Carol LaBra]

11:05 PM on 10/30/2010

OMFG, was that ever anticlimactic to 1971 when infinitely smaller protests continued resulting in the arrests of several thousand more, bringing the total to 12,000 people, making this the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_May_Day_Protests

OK, YOU HAD YOUR LITTLE PARTY...NOW GET YOUR ASSES ALL BACK TO THE FIELDS COME MONDAY MORNING PICKING COTTON FOR THE WAR EFFORT! ;-)

[layman]

08:45 AM on 10/30/2010

Carlson, a posturing arrogant dim wit makes you vomit, struggling to stay afloat with no real winning arguments of his own in contentious situation and counter punches by putting others down in an abusive manner.

[tamparob]

06:09 AM on 10/30/2010

Complete intellectual domination. I'm not gloating about that. The "serious" media is a mockery.

[dobberdoss]

05:07 AM on 10/30/2010

I wish he was this BLUNT with Obama the other night....But, that would hurt Obama feelings i guess. Thing is he went fairly easy on him and was utterly polite and STILL Obama looked like his feelings got hurt with a few of Stewart's honest questions

[Beth Hunt]

09:30 AM on 10/30/2010

No...he was not "hurt." Are you serious? Watch it again. He's not "hurt." He's an attorney with good, sound arguments . Don't kid yourself! The man has more cojones than all the men on your father's side of your family.

[lovemycivicduty]

05:39 PM on 10/30/2010

Please read "layman" post above..."counter punches by putting others down in an abusive manner." The poster you commented doesn't deserve your arrogant disrespect. The only thing you got right is he's an attorney...with a mouth full like they all do. So good at manipulating others. I think you've been hacked.

[Michael Mouton]

02:07 PM on 10/31/2010

He asked the hard questions.

[lovethesinner]

03:49 AM on 10/30/2010

It was the highlight of the whole 2004 election coverage, for me. The first time I ever felt like someone else was speaking for me. I used to feel like I needed to take a shower after listening to Crossfire.

If you ever want to relive that slimy feeling watch John McLaughlin on PBS. I finally got free from that snake pit in 2008.

Six years ago, Jon Stewart called it exactly like it was. Cable news is hurting America. It's conflict driven info-tainment. (without the info.)

[Kuriku]

11:56 PM on 10/29/2010

Tucker Carlson is so incredibly rude to Jon during this whole clip. Did he really believe what he was saying was funny when he kept insulting Jon? At least Paul Begala had the good sense to not put his foot in his mouth too much.

[erinker]

12:59 AM on 11/01/2010

I always found Tucker Carlson to be a sniveling little weasil.

[tobynsaunders]

10:29 PM on 10/29/2010

"Left vs. white... black vs. white..." hold on what?! What?!

[libswithhope]

08:59 PM on 10/29/2010

Awesome to repost this clip. This is why Jon Stewart is the man.....

[MoreOptions]

03:32 PM on 10/29/2010

Six years later: They changed the names and people and everything, except Stewart could walk onto one of these shows and say exactly same thing and be just as relevant. Pretty sad

[mthespian]

11:40 AM on 10/31/2010

Except Crossfire was the mother ship . . . now the cable news networks are littered with the two opposing pundits plan. They use teams of them during any kind of campaign or election coverage instead of just reporting what freakin happened.

[spagma]

02:13 PM on 10/29/2010

Can we get him to go on Beck next?

[Sean Myers]

01:50 PM on 10/29/2010

gawd, stewart is witty.

[Hooty owl]

01:27 PM on 10/29/2010

Does the ticker at the bottom make anyone else feel old?

[FrankenPC]

01:18 PM on 10/29/2010

Catharsis, thy name is Stewart (and Colbert!)