stop hurting america

I heard a comment on NPR about Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's Crossfire and I finally remembered to look it up. I know that it's old and I know that everyone has seen it but me but it's so good. And sadly, still relevant. If you have 14 minutes of your life to spare I definitely recommend checking it out. Even if you don't have 14 minutes, just watch from minute 2:50 and stop when you get bored. I'll be the first to admit that the Daily Show swings way to the left but I really appreciate and respect that Mr. Stewart addresses that the last thing we need is partisanship. I'm guilty of it too and I'm quick to judge based on political affiliation so it's good to hear an intelligent and respected celebrity call for members of the media to stop the noise.

Here are a couple of my favorite lines:

-How does it pay?
-Not well, but you can sleep at night.

-...and maybe this explains quite a bit, that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity.

-This is theater...how old are you?
-35
-and you wear a bow tie...and listen, I'm not suggesting that you're not a smart guy because those are not easy to tie...but the thing is that you're doing theater when you should be doing debate. It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery.

-You're on CNN...the show that leads up to me is puppets making prank phone calls...what is wrong with you?!

-You have responsibility to the public discourse
-You need to get a job at a journalism school I think
-You need to go to one

It's almost painful to listen to these men try desperately to get a word in edgewise and try to get back to what they thought this interview would be like. They just don't know what to do when getting faced with the tough questions they accuse him of not asking.

I haven't seen a clip of Jon Stewart that made me respect him this much since the video seen here, which was hard to find a copy of.