Stewart told Dan Bartlett the President has an open invitation to come on the show. He was literally begging for Bush to be a guest on the program. Kerry's campaign manager is Mary Beth Cahill. When was she on the program?
since we're including non-political celebrities, you can add to the conservative side: Adam Sandler, Sarah Michelle Geller, Norm McDonald, Colin Quinn, Jeri Ryan and can you really count Desmond Tutu as a "liberal"?
The list I posted is just a list of recorded links from their website. I wish they had a complete list. I bet the tilt would still be the same. Some non-politicians are liberal too and they express political thoughts. Count it all up and I bet the tilt is still the same. I think Bill Maher eventually had the same problem with politically incorrect: he found it harder and harder to get top-flight conservative representatives on the show because it was a set-up.
i never said the ratio was 1:1 but you did say he has "few" conservative guests and i think that has been proven wrong. anyway, the real issue was how he treats those guests. where is your example of where Jon was rude to a conservative guest?
I think compared to the relatively long list of liberal guests that the conservative list is but a few. No telling how many liberal guests we are forgetting. I never said he was rude to any guest period on TDS-- much less the conservative guests. I was just considering Tucker Carlson's assertion that he was too gentle with Kerry and so wondered if the same charge could conceivably be made with his guests (however many or few) that he politically disagreed with. Somehow I doubted it! I did say that Stewart was a rude guest on Crossfire, though.
Stewart barely needed to say a word, really; the show proved his point for him. The sad thing is neither Carslon or Begala 'got' it.
I thought it was interesting that the bow tie guy was trying to bust out stewart by saying his show failed in the same ways JS was pointing out crossfire was failing, and then stewart points out TDS is a COMEDY SHOW, not news oriented. Classic. And when he cut to the chase and called the bow tie guy a dick. He had no idea how to handle that. Reminds me of someone...
Original thread post: The real issue? I'm afraid that isn't even close to the real issue. In fact who gives a flying f*** if Stewart is a registered anarchist or not? His point on Crossfire wasn't even remotely related to his political inclinations. What are you guys babbling about? You're worse than "Crossfire" itself.
Oh, and the editor of the National Review Online was on the Daily Show. As well as Bernard Goldberg. Just to add to the conservative guest count. Don't know if those have been mentioned yet.
I think the only reason he was blasting Carlson so much was because Carlson was the one trying to pin Stewart's ears back, quite miserably at that. He wasn't supposed to be a 'good' guest. He was on a mission, apparently. I thought he kind of crossed the line calling Carlson a dick on his own show, on live tv, but I would rather hear Stewart talk than Begala or Carlson ANY day.. especially when he's not in the confines of The Daily Show. (however loose those confines may be)
Dead on. Carlson tried to get Stewart backpeddling from the get go, but Stewart wasn't having any of it. Stewart crossed the line by calling him a dick, but Carlson lived up to it by getting in any comment he could, most of them very weak.
Jon Stewart did exactly the right thing by calling these guys out ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE for exactly what they are. Parrots, who now more than ever are fed talking points. I think the American public is probably sick to death of hearing different "takes" on the news on these shows and would much rather watch a show that has non-partisan, informed guests that will talk about the facts in an intelligent manner than one that will try to hammer their side of the argument home. The Daily show makes fun of both parties (although it's hard to steer clear of the Bush administration one because they are the party in power and two because they do such dumb things, like lie to the press) and they are equal opportunity offenders. VP debates for example. The fact that the Daily Show is one of the few shows on TV that will call out politicians and media and others for their bullsh*t is really quite sad. This used to be what journalists used to do. Now it's just from the right, I'm a red parrot and from the left I'm a blue one. Sheesh. If the media would get back to their job of reporting FACTS and calling people out when they lie, the Daily Show would probably go back to making fun of ordinary shmoes.
Mulder, I agree with you basically, but I also think it's possible to be a partisan and argue honestly. The Crossfire guys rarely do that. They mostly lean on talking points and an effort to win the spin game. I don't know that I've ever heard Begala go outside the official talking points. To his credit, though he is a dick, I've heard Carlson do it. Stewart and Maher do it. Buchanan does it. David Gergen's got strong ideological beliefs (mostly right wing) and he doesn't entirely mask them, but he puts the lie to both parties in his honest assessment of whatever situation he's discussing. There are several of these guys out there. They're an exception to the general rule, but they're there. I really hate this new thing that if someone's admitted to a certain ideology or party affiliation we should dismiss his or her comments out of hand. Gergen is not Coulter or even Carlson and Shields is not Michael Moore or even Begala. There is a great lot to be learned from people passionately arguing from a position of sincere belief and the idea of objectivity is not only overrated -- it is impossible.
Definitely see your point and there are those who seem to be able to think independently, those seem to be the ones I can sit through for more than 5 minutes. When Tucker was on Real Time he actually came across as a thinking person until he started dodging... but he is a dick.
He's silly as hell, but when he's good, he's great. His Esquire article on travelling with Al Sharpton to Liberia was the bomb. It's five pages long so I won't post it, but you can get to it here: http://www.keepmedia.com/Register.do?oliID=225
Begala isnt really a commentator though....neither is James Carville. Of course they dont go outside the party line, they live and breathe it. I dont even think it's something they purposely do, it's just who they are. They were born that way... sort of like Cheney's daughter I guess. Both of them are still brilliant men though. I mean, Begala got someone elected to the most powerful job in the world at the age of 30. That's pretty incredible. I think he was 30. You forgot Joe Scarborough in your list of people there. He's pretty decent, sometimes.