[What he said] Stewart on Crossfire

Lots of reaction in the blogosphere tonight to comedian Jon Stewart's appearance on the CNN political debate show Crossfire. You should be able to easily find transcripts and MP3 audio files of the show. Aaron Swartz has a reaction and a link to the Bittorrent file. I recommend watching it rather than listening or reading. Stewart's performance — was it a performance? — is remarkable and discomfiting.

Swartz: Stewart on Crossfire
One of the most incredible sights of this political season:

Jon Stewart goes on Crossfire, one of our vapid political “debate” shows and asks them, plainly, to stop hurting America, to leave the side of the politicians and the corporations and start working for the people.
The two Crossfire hosts can't believe their ears and team up to go after Stewart, but he manages to come out on top while the hosts are exposed as vapid and amoral actors playing parts.
It's an amazing sight. It’s as if the little man behind the curtain is revealed right before your eyes.
How long can it be before they manage to get rid of Stewart? He is clearly the most serious threat to Politics As Usual we’ve had in a long time.

Mr. Gilbert at blog The Big Ticket has an excellent analyst of just what happened:

Apparently, Carlson & Begala don't understand what The Daily Show is all about. The Daily Show's “fake news” may take shots at politicians, but it's actually satirizing the news media. So when TPTB (the powers that be) over at CNN invited Stewart onto their “debate” program, they shouldn't have been entirely suprised that he, as a successful comedian & social critic, would actually choose to discuss his area of general “expertise” with the hosts. It wasn't Comedy Central's The Daily Show, this was CNN's Crossfire, which “examines the political and social issues impacting the United States” according to their website. Begala & Carlson thought their guest would just be a comedian plugging a book, but they forgot whose show was whose.

Wonkette (who I was on TV with today), it seems, got Tucker Carlson on the phone after the taping and typed up his response.