Jon Stewart is always pretty outspoken on the show about what he feels is the failing of "real" news to do the job entrusted to them, which is to report the facts to the people. He often makes little comments, especially during his interviews with the guests he has on the show, about how frustrated he is at seeing all the news organizations avoid making a big deal about some really alarming issues and events, instead focusing on irrelevant trivialities. Essentially, he feels they are just functioning as a tool of the respective parties, and in doing so are failing in their duty to the general public.

But the other day, he really took a big step out there to firmly make his point. He went on CNN's Crossfire as a guest, and apparently they expected a standard "pet on display" book promotion appearance, but he used the opportunity to attack and criticize them outright, saying they are hurting America.

STEWART: But my point is this. If your idea of confronting me is that I don't ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we're in bad shape, fellows. (LAUGHTER)

CARLSON: We're here to love you, not confront you. We're here to be nice.

STEWART: No, no, no, but what I'm saying is this. I'm not. I'm here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they're hurting us.

(APPLAUSE)

BEGALA: Let me get this straight. If the indictment is -- if the indictment is -- and I have seen you say this -- that...

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: And that CROSSFIRE reduces everything, as I said in the intro, to left, right, black, white.

STEWART: Yes.

BEGALA: Well, it's because, see, we're a debate show.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great.

BEGALA: It's like saying The Weather Channel reduces everything to a storm front.

STEWART: I would love to see a debate show.

BEGALA: We're 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that's like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.

He goes on to say, But the thing is that this — you're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great. [...] It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery.

I worry that he is going to end up paying for this affront — I'd say he can at least count on not being asked back to another debate show — but it filled me with hope to see someone go out on a limb and speak out about their real concerns.

Solistrato on MetaFilter sums it up perfectly and says it far better than I could: I think he is also geniunely shocked and disbelieving that he, a fairly decent comedian who had one failed MTV show and several roles in low-budget movies, is now the only one in the media gang-bang that seems genuinely concerned about the state of democratic discourse. It's no act. He really can't believe that no one else is taking this seriously at all.

It was amusing how the hosts kept trying to lead him back into light-hearted banter and he simply refused to stray and continued pounding away at the show:

CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.

STEWART: No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.

[...]

CARLSON: Is this really Jon Stewart? What is this, anyway?

STEWART: Yes, it's someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore.

[...]

BEGALA: We did promise naked pictures of the Supreme Court justices.

CARLSON: Yes, we did. Let's get to those.

BEGALA: They're in this book, which is a very funny book.

STEWART: Why can't we just talk -- please, I beg of you guys, please.

CARLSON: I think you watch too much CROSSFIRE. We're going to take a quick break.

STEWART: No, no, no, please.

CARLSON: No, no, hold on. We've got commercials.

STEWART: Please. Please stop.

CARLSON: Next, Jon Stewart in the "Rapid Fire."

STEWART: Please stop.

CARLSON: Hopefully, he'll be here, we hope, we think.

[...]

CARLSON: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're talking to Jon Stewart, who was just lecturing us on our moral inferiority. Jon, you're bumming us out. Tell us, what do you think about the Bill O'Reilly vibrator story?

STEWART: I'm sorry. I don't.

CARLSON: Oh, OK.

STEWART: What do you think?

BEGALA: Let me change the subject.

STEWART: Where's your moral outrage on this?

CARLSON: I don't have any.

STEWART: I know.

Here's the transcript. A BitTorrent of the video clip is available here.