Jon Stewart's Crossfire Debut: A Retrospective

20 years on from the iconic Crossfire exchange. How the heated exchange went on to (not) radically reform modern discourse, and how the public caught in the crossfire became collateral damage.

18 days before the 2004 United States presidential election, on October 15th, Jon Stewart appeared on CNN’s Crossfire, hosted at that time by Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, in what was one of the more important events in punditry in the 21st century, as well as being one of the earliest clips to go viral online.

While Begala and Carlson may have planned to grill Stewart on 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry¹, Stewart quickly turned the tables onto the hosts, accusing their program of harming public discourse.

“You’re doing theatre, when you should be doing debate.”

And for Crossfire, this certainly was true. While his appearance lasted longer than the 77 seconds clipped above, most of it was far from substantive, largely in part due to Carlson’s actions. Stewart was clearly not interested in talking about his book or engaging with the list questions that Carlson had prepared, instead wanting to talk about how Crossfire was hurting Americans though trying to fit every issue into the left-right, Democrat-Republican paradigm. Carlson was unable to pick up on this at the time and consistently tried to get back on script with the conversation, and in doing so, provided the best evidence as to Crossfire being a program more concerned with the appearance of discussing issues than being a program that is willing to engage in honest discussion.

It was a watershed moment, to see someone lampoon the mainstream media as unproductive, and then have the media’s response prove it to the audience in real time. Early in 2005, the president of CNN at the time, Jonathan Klein, cancelled Crossfire, citing Stewarts criticism as a chief reason for the show’s cancellation.²

Crossfire was far from the first show of it’s kind. Even when the first iteration of Crossfire launched back in 1982 with Tom Braden and Pat Buchanan, the format of a left-wing and right-wing pundit squaring off on the issue of the day was already over a decade old. Back in 1968, ABC hosted a series of debates between famed writer Gore Vidal and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. as part of its coverage of that years’ Democratic and Republican national conventions. Despite both being shrewd and erudite masters of prose, their exchanges were still prone to devolving into spats. Christopher Hitchens describes it by invoking the Jungian principle of enantiodromia³ to characterize why the Buckley-Vidal debates were so acerbic. Yet despite the key issues of the day often ending up sidelined in favor of petty squabbling and moralizing, the whole world was watching the birth of modern punditry nonetheless.

As Richard Wald put it in The Best of Enemies, a 2015 documentary that covered the Buckley-Vidal debates and the subsequent fallout, “Argument is sugar and the rest of us are flies.” And it worked, ABC carried the momentum with it into the 1970s, going from a clear third in television news, behind CBS and NBC, to clear first in the several years following the debate. CNN arrived on the scene in 1980 and Crossfire started airing just a couple years after that. Fox News launched a similar program to Crossfire, Hannity & Colmes in 1992⁴. The modern evolution of these style of shows, programs such as The View and The Five, are immensely popular, ranking first in viewership in their respective categories of daytime and primetime for talk shows and news programs. It’s not just a feature of television either, superficial discussion permeates social media, and there’s no shortage of online creators, like Jubilee, who drive tons of engagement through creating this type of content.

In the aftermath of 2004’s close election⁵, historian Simon Schama wrote a rather charged article for The Guardian reflecting on the outcome.

In the wee small hours of November 3 2004, a new country appeared on the map of the modern world: the DSA, the Divided States of America. Oh yes, I know, the obligatory pieties about "healing" have begun; not least from the lips of the noble Loser. This is music to the ears of the Victor of course, who wants nothing better than for us all to Come Together, a position otherwise known as unconditional surrender. Please, fellow curmudgeons and last ditchers, can someone on the losing side just for once not roll over and fall into a warm bath of patriotic platitudes at such moments, but toot the flute of battle instead; yell and holler and snarl just a wee bit? I don't want to heal the wound, I want to scratch the damned thing until it hurts and bleeds - and then maybe we'll have what it takes to get up from the mat.

…

"We are one nation," the newborn star of Democrats, Senator-elect Barack Obama, exclaimed, even as every salient fact of political life belied him. Well might he invoke Lincoln, for not since the Civil war has the fault line between its two halves been so glaringly clear, nor the chasm between its two cultures so starkly unbridgeable. Even territorially (with the exception of Florida, its peninsular finger pointing expectantly at tottering Cuba), the two Americas are topographically coherent and almost contiguous. One of those Americas is a perimeter, lying on the oceans or athwart the fuzzy boundary with the Canadian lakes, and is necessarily porous and outward-looking. The other America, whether montagnard or prairie, is solidly continental and landlocked, its tap roots of obstinate self-belief buried deep beneath the bluegrass and the high corn. It is time we called those two Americas something other than Republican and Democrat, for their mutual alienation and unforgiving contempt is closer to Sunni and Shia, or (in Indian terms) Muslim and Hindu.

You might be able to discern that Schama was not happy with the choice made by American voters. “[F]or not since the Civil war has the fault line between its two halves been so glaringly clear”. Keep in mind that support for the Iraq War was still relatively high at this time and fairly bipartisan, Kerry himself voted in favor of the Second Gulf War⁶, and it wasn’t until 2006 that Bush himself would publicly admit that no WMDs were discovered.

Schama’s article is striking not for the poor political predictions (He predicted the Iraq war would end by the summer of 2005. He was wrong), or the specific references that have aged horrendously — Schama mentions Citizen Change’s efforts to get out the youth vote. Citizen Change, for those who may not recall, was founded by prominent rapper Sean Combs FKA Puff Daddy/P. Diddy AKA Diddy or as he has recently come to go by, the Diddler⁷. Rather Schama’s writing is notable for presenting a thesis about a deeply divided America. After all, Diddy’s go-to slogan for the 2004 election was “Vote or Die!”.

The idea that 2004 was the most polarized America has even been in the civil war seems laughable now, but it was also laughable then. That America was more divided in 2004 than it was in 1912 when Roosevelt tore the Republican party in half, than it was in 1968 when MLK Jr. and RFK were both assassinated in a two month span, than it was in 2000 with Bush v. Gore. Ralph Nader is still dealing with the “spoiler” label even in 2024.

A 2014 report from Pew Research Center chronicling the change in political polarization over a 20 year period found a much more significant divide between 2014 and 2004 than 2004 and 1994. And now in 2024, as the event horizon of the election quickly approaches, there are reports that indicate nearly 75% of of adults view democracy as being on the ballot; unsurprising given how little common ground is seen to be shared between the two parties.

Stewart’s 2004 appearance on Crossfire should have led into a wider discussion about the role the media plays in driving the divide amongst Americans, but it clearly didn’t, and like many of the other great issues facing American in the 21st Century, drug overdose deaths, depression, obesity, etc., that have been allowed to fester for far too long, there’s no quick solution to fix this mess. But why didn’t it go anywhere?

Of the three parties involved in altercation, Paul Begala, former advisor to Bill Clinton, had the least eventful trajectory of the three. Despite losing his spot on Crossfire when the show was cancelled in 2005, Begala was retained as a contributor to CNN, still writing articles for them to this day. In 2015, one of those contributions Begala made to CNN was a retrospective on Stewart’s appearance, in which he voiced agreement with Stewart’s main assertions that Crossfire was reductive and counterproductive. Where Begala departed with Stewart was with his idea to instead have Crossfire structured to bring experts on to the show and instead ask for their opinions as how to tackle issues, something that Begala would characterize as a naïve approach to politics that assumes there are objective approaches to issues and certain truths.

Tucker Carlson probably undoubtedly experienced the most growth of the three in the 20 years since the incident. While he brought the bowtie with him to PBS (2004-2005), though he swapped it for the necktie during his time on Tucker at MSNBC (2005-2008), cultivating his signature image for Tucker Carlson Tonight during his tenure at Fox News (2009-2023). Now producing his own content independently, Carlson has found continued success, attracting plenty of controversy along the way, with the work he does for X as well as for his own streaming service. In an interview with Lex Fridman, computer scientist, podcaster, and stable fixed point of YouTube auto-play, from this February, Carlson spoke about his takeaways from the Crossfire debacle.

At the time Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire, he had already grown a significant audience from his work hosting The Daily Show, from which he would first depart in 2015. Stewart would then spend the next few years indexing back into standup comedy while still doing occasional television work, but in 2021 he returned in full force to commentary with The Problem with Jon Stewart for Apple TV+. His deal with Apple was brief, ending in late 2023 over disagreements on what Stewart should be allowed to cover, and this February, the prodigal son finally returned home to The Daily Show. When it come to talking about his appearance on Crossfire, Stewart most certainly has been the least introspective of the trio.

Stewart was, as agreed by all the parties involve, right about much of what he said on Crossfire, but while his offense that night was largely spectacular, his defense left much to be desired. When Carlson would ask why Stewart wouldn’t hold himself to the same standard that he demanded from everyone else, Stewart would deflect and say that his show was meant to be entertainment as he is a comedian, thusly he saw himself as exempt from any responsibility to adhere to the honest conduct he wanted others to embody. In fact, despite being quite candid in his Crossfire appearance, Stewart has been quite timid in revisiting the topic with the same countenance, as Begala’s 2015 recollection recounted Stewart avoiding him and Stewart understandably has no interest in reconvening with Carlson.

Smells like teen theatre.

It’s the classic case of wanting both the cake and ability to eat it as well; to use comedy as a sword and a shield whenever the need arises; to engage in an action under the pretense of comedy and then to use comedy as the excuse to shirk from the having to face the consequences of that action. The problem with Jon Stewart could perhaps best be exemplified from an incident on The Problem with Jon Stewart, specifically from the “Racism” episode, which involved a testy exchange between Andrew Sullivan⁸ and the other hosts on the panel.

Kudos to Stewart for trying to single handedly revive Vaudeville. That woman, Lisa Bond, is a member of Race2Dinner⁹, an organization that looks to he conversations about race over dinner, sporting the official title of Resident White Woman. It’s hard to defend Stewart in this exchange. He tries to defend the panel by saying, “I disagree that they’re generalizing all white people”, only for Bond to immediately say “I’m gonna put everybody in the thing. All of us white people do this.” Stewart doesn’t even try to reconcile that with his previous statement, instead throwing praise at Bond, and stating a desire to finger snap. Stewart’s appearances on The Daily Show haven’t been radically different from where the program was before his return; it’s very much been back to business, even if the business was hurting America. Sullivan would go on to claim that Stewart’s team sold him a false bill of goods as to the subject matter and medium of the discussion, something that Stewart would deny.

Jon Stewart’s legacy extends far beyond himself, as many of the correspondents who’ve worked for him, such as Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Hasan Minhaj, have gone on to lead their own shows, carrying elements from The Daily Show over with them. The evolution of late-night television has followed in The Daily Show’s wake, and the results have been catastrophic. The idea of someone like Donald Trump going on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert seems totally alien today, but it did happen once upon a time back in 2015, when political polarization was already a significant issue. Even Bush and Clinton have had more recent appearances on late night shows than Trump.

Stewart once called for debate, but even the pretense of debate has all but vanished. Fox News’ Gutfeld! has emerged over the past few years as an equally reductive alternative to many of talk shows that skew left to much success. The reality 20 years on from Crossfire is harrowing indeed, but it has also been in part ushered by the likes of Stewart more than the likes of Carlson (who certainly plays to the crowd at times). Dialogue has been lost to soliloquy.

Americans are hurting. The media is not helping, in fact trust in mass media has hit a record low, with only 31% of Americans now expressing that they have at least a fair amount of trust in the news to be accurate. Stewart may have been right back in 2004, but to stick by those statements today would make him a hypocrite of the highest order in 2024 (arguably in 2004 as well, though it’s less excusable now). For the real joke was played on the audience at home and on all those who dared to believe that, 20 years on, Stewart’s words were anything more than just an act.

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Well this was a bit more challenging to write than some of our other work, only because we had to find ways to keep it as concise as possible. Something that we’ll try to do in this section as well.

One piece of music that we somehow managed to miss was tsubi club’s (fairly) recent single “laced up”, though more specifically the director’s cut of the track, which features a great blend of pace, with an extended intro to the core of the song and an phenomenal bridge to the outro.

The music video is pretty cool too. Match cuts are always a plus.

Also, apologies for the paywalled links, the Internet Archive was recently under attack and we will look to restore links when their services come back online.

1. Kerry has since found his way into The White House through acting as the 68th United States Secretary of State, succeeding Hillary Clinton, from 2013-2017 and more recently as the first United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate from 2021-2024 (succeeded by John Podesta). The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient has since most recently made headlines for his comments lamenting the First Amendment at the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Sustainable Development Impact Meetings.

2. They did try to bring Crossfire back briefly in 2013 after Klein had left CNN, featuring Newt Gingrich, S. E. Cupp, Stephanie Cutter, and Van Jones as commentators. It was cancelled on October 15th 2014, ten years after Jon Stewart’s appearance, and ten years before this article was published.

3. Or to phrase it reductively: “Opposites attract”

4. Hannity & Colmes ended in 2009. It was succeeded spiritually by The Five in 2011.

5. It was 286-251 for Bush over Kerry, closer than most who triumph the power of the incumbent may admit. In fact there hasn’t since been an election that was this close in the college. While admittedly nowhere as near as close as 537 of Florida in 2000, had Kerry shown a stronger performance in Ohio, which he lost by only 118,601 votes, just under 2.11% of the total state vote, he could have ascended to the presidency in a reversal of 2000, and Michael Badnarik and Michael Peroutka would have likely been scapegoated the same way Ralph Nader was.

6. He voted against the First Gulf War however.

7. Diddy was placed under arrest and indicted in September for racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking amongst many other allegations. As a result he has been compared to figures like Jeffery Epstein, which probably isn’t helped by the fact he is currently incarcerated and under suicide watch in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, the same facility that once housed Epstein conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell before she was transferred to a prison in Tallahassee earlier this year. Combs is also sharing his cell with Sam Bankman-Fried, the same Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX who received a 25 year sentence for fraud amongst other charges back in March. His trial date is currently set for May 5th, 2025.

8. Andrew Sullivan is also featured in the 2015 documentary The Best of Enemies, a highly recommend watch.

9. Yes, this is the same Race2Dinner that Matt Walsh punked in his latest film for The Daily Wire, Am I Racist?