I was going through my YT feed, and I came across this long video about the Tucker/Stewart beef. It is over an hour, but I think it really puts John Stewart Leibowitz into proper context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIynbYUA1Q
I had never seen those Crossfire clips before, so watching Leibowitz lecture Tucker on his moral failings was all new. I don't know how Tucker put up with his moralizing ass, I would have tossed him out almost instantly. I couldn't stand Colbert or Leibowitz back then because of how blatantly one sided and disingenuous they were, but I can see what Leibowitz is doing a lot more clearly now. It isn't about politics, it is about moral lecturing, and he cloaks it in comedy.
The first Rogan clip where they're fluffing Leibowitz they say Apple fired him because of what he might say.
The only evidence of this is John saying it. Apple was paying him a lot of money because they wanted a New Daily Show to get people signed up for Apple TV; that didn't happen because his show sucked. Viewership dropped off precipitously and clips didn't spread on social media.
Paying a lot of money, not getting results - facts - versus Thing John Said. Hmm, which is more likely...
I think it was Norm that gave the behind the scenes with Leibowitz saying he saw how somebody else got a huge ratings boost by attacking Crossfire and he's going to do that and get ratings. He didn't even care that they were divisive or unserious, he just wanted ratings. That's how calculated and slimy he is and always has been.
Stewart is just jealous that Tucker is making actual news with his work whereas Stewart is basically a failed comedian that had a job 20 years ago making Bush jokes.
There's still part of me that can't get mad at someone going on CNN to tell them they suck, even if it was for his own partisan reasons.
I liked this article on the topic, which takes the position of
He was (mostly) right in the Crossfire interview. A phony divide between Democrats and Republicans helps only Democrats and Republicans. That said, he was also a hypocrite, because while he criticized Tucker and that other guy for this, he does it himself - and then he hides behind "I'm just a comedian".
I agree. That Crossfire interview took place in a very different time. Stewart was right in criticizing political commentary as partisan theater that helps no one.
The problems with Stewart calling out political commentators like Tucker was at the time:
He was right, but his motivations were wrong. Calling him a hypocrite is missing the mark.
This was said in 2003 or 2004, when Republicans were blindly following George W. Bush. Bush and Kerry were separated at birth. It's like Biden running against Nikki Haley, and when that happens, the media will manufacture another phony 'divide'.
Even now, the vast majority of Republicans are absolute trash, so yeah, the 'divide' is phony. If anything, it serves to lull you into complacency by imagining that there is a ruling party and an opposition party with about equal strength, rather than a ruling uniparty with token opposition from something like 5% of Republicans.
Who said "why can't we all just get along"?
The Republican Party also has people like Eyepatch McCain and Nikki Haley. By pretending that it's GOP vs. Democrat, you enable them.
How on earth did you get "Matt Gaetz is the same as Nikki Haley" from that?
I was pointing out that you can't make this about "Republican vs. Democrat" and that phony divide, because as you correctly point out, the divide runs in the middle of the GOP.
By pretending that it's GOP vs. Democrats, you're not doing anyone any favors except the RINOs and the regime.
My solution is acknowledging that a lot of GOP, like Nikki Haley, are absolute crap, and that we shouldn't pretend that they're any better than Joe Biden.
Discern who is actually worth supporting.
What has Trump or the Republicans done to earn your enthusiasm? They are just as liberal as any Democrat.
Your post is a tale of two sentences.
Valid question. Republicans are mostly cucked bitches that will fold on their supposed principles for money. Trump has shown that while he can be better than most, he is far from perfect.
Uhhhh. You'd have a hard time arguing that Trump is just as liberal as AOC or [insert whacky far left Democrat here]. While i agree we need someone much more hardline and illiberal than Trump, statements like this that remove any and all nuance are not helpful.
If it's Trump vs. Biden, Trump is the obvious choice.
If it's Nikki vs. Biden (har har har), RFK is the obvious choice. So yeah, both sides are bad, so vote Democrat.
Both sides are bad, so don't vote for either, would be the lane I'm suggesting you go down.
You can't stop me! I'm gonna vooooooooot even harder!
Voting is a strategy, not the be all and end all. The opposition uses it like that in countries that are even more openly authoritarian than the US.
I think that is just as much a mistake as reflexively voting for the lesser of the two evils.
If you vote for the lesser of the two evils, even when the differences are very small, the lesser evil will get more evil each time.
On the other hand, Trump is markedly better than any Democrat. He's also at the limits of what you can get away with in the current system, probably even way beyond it - considering what they have done to him. Throwing a tantrum because Trump isn't X enough is self-defeating.
How is it a tantrum to say that Trump is as uniparty as anyone else? Look at who he filled his cabinet with, swamp monsters.
Yeah, that's why they indicted him four times.
Correction: nearly every Democrat politician is evil, and most Republicans (at least at the national level) are evil as well.