the daily snivel

  Well, Tucker Carlson is a dick.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is my daily dose of sanity. I don't watch a lot of television between school, the Clinic, and fraternizing, but I watch that show faithfully and with zeal. The Daily Show is a refreshing counterweight to the inane conventional wisdom purveyed by an increasingly lazy, timid, and tepid news media and the army of loudmouth talking heads commanding it. I've already read America (the book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction and bought copies for friends, because it's such an outstanding and delightful work.

So, when Stewart, who has long been critical of punditfests like CNN's crossfire, appeared on the show to confront its hosts, it was great to see him continuing this message.

See the Toronto Star article about it here.

Stewart would not act like the comic "monkey" CNN obviously expected him to be when it booked him. He was supposed to be the good guest, and go through the motions of plugging the bestseller, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide To Democracy Inaction.

Instead, he lashed out at Crossfire's "partisan hackery," and accused the daily political screamfest of "hurting America."

Appearing in a grey V-neck and looking very serious, Stewart relentlessly went after the program, as he often does on the Daily Show. (His preferred punching bag is Carlson's conservative cohort, Robert Novak, whom Stewart calls "Douchebag for Liberty.")

Insisting that calling Crossfire a debate show is "like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition," Stewart charged: "You're doing theatre, when you should be doing debate ... What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery."

Stewart was making an appeal for serious political discussion, free of partisan spin, talking points, lies and deception.

The transcript is available on-line here. I like Angela's cleaned-up version better, but you may have to search for it.

Better yet, watch the video here.