LIGHTING INTO CNN

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show lit up Blog World after he lit into CNN Crossfire hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala today while appearing as a guest. Under the headline "Jon Stewart Bitchslaps CNN's 'Crossfire' Show," Robert Mancini at MTV.com wrote:

In what could well be the strangest and most refreshing media moment of the election season, "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart turned up on a live broadcast of CNN's "Crossfire" Friday and accused the mainstream media — and his hosts in particular — of being soft and failing to do their duty as journalists to keep politicians and the political process honest.

This is pure Wonkette territory and she comes through with her usual aplomb.

...some rush transcription:

Tucker: You always scold people like this at dinner at your house?

Jon: If they have a show that's as stupid as this one.

Tucker: You know, you're not as fun as you are on your tv show.

Jon: You know what, you're just as big a dick as you are on your tv show.

Score: Fake News 1, Grown Men in Bow Ties 0.

And she provides a link to the CNN transcript of the show.

This is great fun, but when you read the transcript it's clear Stewart was trying to make a serious point — at a time when debate is sorely needed, Crossfire lets people down by providing only theatre — and Carlson and Begala weren't much interested in getting into that discussion.

(This comes a day after my post about CNN's practice of offering hackery in place of analysis or intelligent discussion (scroll down), but I'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with today's to-do.)

UPDATE: There's a BitTorrent feed of the show in either .avi and .wmv format
6:52:32 PM  LINK TO THIS POST  

MORE COMMA SENSE

Bill Walsh, copy editor extraordinaire, takes a few minutes to look at the humble comma and come up with some common-sense guidelines.

His bottom line on the proper use of the comma: it depends.

...when it comes to punctuation's other most confusing critter, I like flexibility. Do I use a comma to introduce a quotation? It depends. Do I use a comma after an introductory clause? It depends -- and not only on the length of that clause.

You'll have to go read his post for the details, and if you care about writing, you will.

Walsh wrote one of my favourite books on writing, the irreplaceable -- and irrepressible -- Lapsing into a Comma. I have his latest, The Elephants of Style, on order.
6:15:49 PM  LINK TO THIS POST