Centrist Political Group Trying to Promote Civil Bipartisanship, But Will It Work?

Okay, so it’s got a pretty lame name, this new bipartisan group, No Labels, which is calling for D.C. politicians to stop insisting that every issue be seen strictly through a partisan lens and demands that lawmakers put aside their fierce political cynicism in order to seek consensus, all the while trying to be a tad civil to one another, as opposed to demonizing and screaming at one another.

All of these goals sound so eminently reasonable, in the way that Jon Stewart’s Rally for Sanity sounded reasonable. Who WOULDN’T want to seek out the middle ground of issues, where most Americans find themselves, as opposed to the noisy political edges which suck up all the oxygen and media coverage. (It’s a lot more fun for the media to cover nastiness and sniping from either side of the political aisle -- particularly when they hurl insults at one another, throw up roadblocks and offer poison pill amendments to bills -- than it is to cover the moderates in either party ‘cause they're not turning red and calling the people who don't think like them soulless monsters.) The way things operate nowadays, there’s nothing to be gained by staking out a moderate position on anything, not when the parties are currently doing business with a “you’re either with us or against us” mentality.

Which is why something like this “No Labels” group (seriously wish they’d come up with a better, snappier name) -- comprised of people who don’t lambaste a Republican who works with Democrats or who doesn’t tow the party line as a RINO (and the same for a Dem who works with Republicans) -- seems so promising, at least to those of us who aren’t on the political extremes and who don’t see it is as a mortal sin to agree with (or seek out agreement) with someone from another political party.

Here’s an excerpt from this organization’s “declaration:”

“We are not labels – we are people.

We care deeply about our country.

We are frustrated and concerned about the tone of politics.

We are passionate about addressing America’s challenges.

We are Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Most importantly, we are Americans.

We believe hyper-partisanship is destroying our politics and paralyzing our ability to govern.

We may disagree on issues, but we do so with civility and mutual respect.

We believe in the vital civil center — a place where ideas are judged on their merits.

. . . And yet, we have a crisis of governance – A crisis that compels us to work together to move America forward.

We must put our labels aside, and put the issues and what’s best for the nation first.”

Hmm. What to make of this? Idealistic for sure, Frank Capra/Mr. Smith Goes to Washington idealistic. But will it, can it become a bona fide “movement” with real clout with lawmakers? Can it make a difference?

The Huffington Post reported that No Labels will have its first, splashy launch event on Dec. 13 at Columbia University where several prominent current and former pols will discuss the virtues of political civility and moderation, including Joe Scarborough, the Republican former congressman and current host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. His co-host, Mika Brzezinski, who leans toward the Democratic side of things, will moderate the panel.

Among the other scheduled launch party participants Huffington Post named included: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, Independent (formerly Democratic) Senator Joe Lieberman, former Republican Rep. Tom Davis, Republican Rep. Chris Shays, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former Republican Gov. Christie Todd Whitman.

Think something like this has a shot of altering the dialogue in D.C., of promoting bipartisanship and actually getting stuff done or is it, to quote another Capra film, just “sentimental hogwash?”

Image credit: No Labels.

In Between Peeling Potatoes & ODing on Turkey, 'Modern Family' Clips Provide Levity

As the level of stress starts to mount (if it hasn't already) and you gird yourself to host/travel to/put up with/revel in the great American Thanksgiving feast, here are two TV clips to give you a laugh and lighten the mood, if your mood needs lightening, as mine does when my To Do list is gigantic.

I watched the most recent episode of Modern Family -- "Manny Get Your Gun" – with my own personal, quirky version of the Dunphy family on Friday night, courtesy of our trusty DVR, and we laughed our butts off. (The barefoot Luke scene literally happened in my house hours before we watched the episode.) We agreed that this was the funniest installment of Modern Family we've seen to date.

ABC has posted two scenes from that episode online including the one below featuring Jay and Gloria’s argument over her lost car keys and Manny saying he was going to take a pass on his birthday party because he realized he’d completely missed his childhood. The scene was “capped” by Gloria’s effective use of Jay’s birthday gift to Manny, which made my 9-year-old son voice his desire for his own, personal BB gun, like Manny's (something likely to increase after we watch The Christmas Story for the bazillionth time):


 
And then there was the flash mob. En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” has been stuck in my head since I watched the episode. (I actually own that CD from 1992. Gave it to my daughter who has taken a shining to the song.)



Hope you have a great Thanksgiving with the family, or without, whatever the case may be. Yours truly will be having two, count ‘em, TWO Thanksgiving dinners, one that The Spouse and I are hosting for a whole mess o’people (we're deep frying two turkeys, huzzah!) and one that we’re attending, to which we're bringing pies and side dishes. We’ve got a visit to Santa on tap, as well as a parade to see, along with at least one youth hockey game to go to and hopefully we'll do it all after consuming an ample quantity of gravy.

I’ll be back here on Monday, already feeling behind on my Christmas shopping (I do NOT participate in that Black Friday insanity), ready to break out the Christmas music and holiday TV specials. One of my closest friends joked that she's going to start answering her phone, "Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?" What a great idea. Wish I'd thought of it first.

Notes on Pop Culture: Thanksgiving Dinner Dysfunction, 'Key' Potter Film Series Moments, 'Red Riding Hood' Trailer (New 'Twilight?')

Thanksgiving Dinner Dysfunction: For the past several years on parenting blogs for which I’ve written, I’ve created and posted a Dysfunctional Family Bingo Card, in whose boxes I inputted various horrible scenarios which you’d never want to occur at your Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, however, instead of a new Bingo card, I’ve created a snarky quiz in which I offer a series of awkward Thanksgiving dinner scenarios, including one inspired by the Betty Draper-Sally Draper gagging on the sweet potatoes scene from the season four premiere of Mad Men.  You're asked to select the response which, to you, represents the best reaction to the situation, based on how dysfunctional you like your family gatherings to be, which may depend on how much wine you've had. Here’s my Mad Men-inspired question:

The hostess of the dinner, who made all the food, loudly observes, for all the diners to hear, that your 8-year-old nephew doesn’t have any yams on his plate. “What, you don’t like my yams?” she asks from the other side of the table. “Why don’t you try some? They’re really good.”

a) Your sister-in-law frowns, then says, “Sure he likes them, don’t you Tommy?” Then she shovels some into his mouth as he protests and gags.

b) Your sister-in-law says, “Thanks for asking, but he’s not a fan of yams. He loves your cranberry sauce though.”

c) “That’s right!” your brother bellows, “smart boy! Just like his dad. NO ONE likes yams.”

Betty chose option A at her first Thanksgiving at her new mother-in-law's home, followed by dragging her daughter out of the room and pinching her.



‘Key’ Harry Potter Film Series Moments: In anticipation of this week’s release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (it’s getting good reviews, including an A- from Entertainment Weekly), The Daily Beast has posted what it describes as 13 “key” moments from the movie series. Among those memorable movie scenes: Harry vs Quirrell/Voldemort in the bowels of Hogwarts, Tom Riddle’s diary flashback, Harry realizing in The Prisoner of Azkaban that he had to save himself from the Dementors (he was the one he was waiting for, not his father), the odious Dolores Umbridge’s scarringly evil detention punishment for Harry, the battle against the Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic which killed Sirius (so devastating for orphan Harry) and the death of Dumbledore. (*sniff*)



Red Riding Hood Trailer (The 'New Twilight?'): While some have likened the trailer for the film Red Riding Hood to “Twilight in a cape,” a writer at the web site Jezebel says she thinks this film, which stars Big Love’s Amanda Seyfried, “looks so much better” than director Catherine Hardwicke’s other big film, the original Twilight movie.

What do you think?

Taiwanese Animators Take on the TSA Screening/Pat-Down Issue

Per usual, the folks at NMA, the Taiwanese animation people who regularly lampoon news of the day, made me laugh with this video about the backlash against the absurdly violating naked image airport screeners and the "enhanced" body grope screenings:

Notes on Politics: Gov't Absurdity Edition: More Cheese/Less Cheese & Nude Photo or Body Grope at Airports

More Cheese/Less Cheese: This past weekend, the New York Times had a full page graphic which challenged its readers to try to cut the federal budget. I’ve got one suggestion: How about, for starters, the U.S. government stop paying one set of people to do something that is being actively fought by another branch of the U.S. government?

The Times reported last week that the federal government has been waging a pro-cheese effort where a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture works with companies – including Domino’s, Burger King and Taco Bell – to INCREASE the amount of cheese in their products. The group called Dairy Management – what the Times called “a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture” that has a $140 million budget -- “teamed up with Domino’s to develop a line of cheese pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign,” the paper said.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, which the Times said has a $6.5 million budget, has admonished us to eat LESS cheese and saturated fat, and to be more responsible about what we eat because we've been told there's an epidemic of obesity in this country. Never mind that Michelle Obama has been running her own anti-obesity campaign. Just this past summer, the Times said, the federal nutrition committee recommended that people who eat pizza should “ask for whole wheat crust and half the cheese.” How about we split the difference and stop chucking good money after bad when the government is running two programs which are at cross-purposes?



If You’re Flying, It’s Nude Photos or a Body Grope: The “enhanced” Transportation Security Administration screenings – which give passengers a "choice" between going through the scanner which takes naked photos of you or submitting to an aggressive body search, including of the groin area – are enough to make you re-think flying, especially during the Thanksgiving week.

We all understand that security measures need to be taken to try to protect the public when they’re aboard commercial airplanes, but these new screenings have gone a step too far, requiring the submission to a humiliating grope or having intrusive images taken of one’s body without probable cause that you might pose a danger. As the mom of three young children, I have to decide which is worse: My kids being subjected to the naked scanner (while the safety of the level of radiation from those machines is being questioned for children, the elderly, cancer and HIV patients and the pregnant) or allowing strangers to touch my children in places where I’ve told them they shouldn’t allow people, outside of their doctor, to touch.

And people are, justifiably, flipping out over this. Everyone from pilots, flight attendants and frequent fliers who have to go through these scanners repeatedly, to general passengers themselves are objecting, including one man who recently refused to consent to a “groin check” when told he had to have one at the San Diego airport and who’s now being threatened with a lawsuit and a $10,000 fine. The man -- who warned the TSA agent that if he touched his “junk” the would-be passenger would have him arrested -- posted a video/audio of his experience on YouTube. In the audio, you a TSA official telling him that he gave up his rights when he bought a plane ticket.

I liked what Dan Gillmor wrote in Salon about what he called the airport “porno-scanners.” Among Gillmor’s salient points:

“The government has lied about how these [scanning] devices work – including an early claim, later refuted, that the images couldn’t be saved or shared – and reputable scientists have challenged the TSA’s assurances that the devices are safe after multiple, long-term exposures.”

“I suspect the uproar, which is absolutely legitimate, has more to do with people’s realization that this invasion of privacy is going to affect them and their children in more direct ways than they’ve contemplated before. Consider: The scanner images of children would qualify as child porn in other circumstances; and the new ‘enhanced pat-down’ procedures, outside of a prison, doctor’s office or your bedroom, would leave the groper liable for prosecution, especially when the gropee is a kid.”

A columnist in the Chicago Tribune, in a column entitled, “Airport security: Government in our pants,” wrote:

“Besides the indignity of having one's body exposed to an airport screener, there is a danger the images will find a wider audience. The U.S. Marshals Service recently admitted saving some 35,000 images from a machine at a federal courthouse in Florida. TSA says that will never happen. Human experience says, oh, yes, it will.

For the camera-shy, TSA will offer an alternative: ‘enhanced’ pat-downs. This is not the gentle frisking you may have experienced at the airport in the past. It requires agents to probe aggressively in intimate zones — breasts, buttocks, crotches.

If you enjoyed your last mammography or prostate exam, you'll love the enhanced pat-down. And you'll get a chance to have an interesting conversation with your children about being touched by strangers.”

Some folks who are particularly outraged about these new security measures have called for civil disobedience of sorts during the Thanksgiving travel period, urging fliers to request pat-downs instead of the scans in order to slow down the security screening process. "National Opt Out Day" is slated for Nov. 24 and its organizer says, "We hope the experience then propels people to write their Member of Congress and the airlines to demand change."
Image credit: Reuters via Salon.

Thanksgiving, TV Style: From 'Cheers' & 'The Gilmore Girls' to 'Mad About You'

Two weeks from now, most of us will be attending or hosting Thanksgiving dinners, mixing all manner of family and friends, including some folks who shouldn't be combined regardless of how much wine is served with dinner. In anticipation of this uniquely American holiday, my mind, of course, turned to TV and some of the Thanksgiving episodes from my favorite TV shows.

For me, THE quintessential Thanksgiving TV episode has to be the Cheers one which ended in a messy food fight with cranberry sauce dripping off of Diane Chambers’ face and splattered across her over-the-top, Pilgrim outfit. Later, just as viewers were about to see what Norm’s wife Vera looked like, she got clobbered in the face with a pie thrown, ironically, by Diane. Who isn’t tempted to start a food fight on Thanksgiving from time to time?

Happy Thanksgiving - WKRP Turkey Drop - kewego

WKRP: The other “classic” Thanksgiving episode is, without question, the WKRP turkey drop one. Even though I was a kid when I saw this in repeats, I still remember practically every detail:

The location was the Pine Dale Shopping Center. Les Nesman was on the scene declaring that “the greatest turkey event in Thanksgiving Day history” was about to happen. Then the people and cars in the shopping plaza's parking lot were bombarded via helicopter with non-flying live turkeys. The episode was capped by a rumpled, traumatized Mr. Carlson saying, “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”



Mad About You: Jamie and Paul Buchman hosted their first Thanksgiving dinner for their parents, family and friends as they were assaulted with an array of pointed darts of passive aggression coming at them from all angles as they tried to awkwardly blend the styles and traditions of the two families. For example, when Jamie and Paul said the dinner would be “buffet style,” their parents scoffed and opted to go “another way” when they weren't in the room, setting the table more traditionally. Paul's father insisted that there be canned cranberry sauce (as opposed to the homemade sauce Jamie was making). Paul's mother brought a sweet potato dish and said the one that Jamie made -- the one without the marshmallows -- could be stowed away in the freezer. The clincher was when the dog had hopped up on the counter and ate the turkey they'd prepared.

Image credit: AMC via Best Television Shows

Once and Again: This show, starring Sela Ward, focused on the impact of divorce on families with children. In its first season, Ward’s not-quite-divorced-yet Lily had Thanksgiving dinner at her house with her kids, her sister and her parents, who brought with them her estranged husband Jake -- whom Lily had explicitly NOT invited -- while her boyfriend Rick was lurking outside the house on the sidewalk waiting for her to come out. Rick appeared miserably lonely while his own children were spending the day at his ex-wife’s house, where she'd invited colleagues from work and her current boyfriend to spend the day. There was fighting and screaming and some lies were tossed about . . . just your garden variety American Thanksgiving.

Mad Men: The first episode of the fourth season, which recently concluded, contained what’s soon to be a classic Thanksgiving scene: Betty Draper Francis forced her daughter Sally to eat some of Betty's new mother-in-law’s sweet potatoes, which Sally promptly spat out onto her plate (gagged on them, really). Betty dragged Sally out of the room while Sally yelled from off camera for her mother to stop pinching her. Meanwhile the deeply depressed Don was in his darkened apartment insisting that the prostitute he hired repeatedly hit him in the face. (Jezebel has a good video clip – second video down -- of the scene in question.)



Gilmore Girls: Remember the year when Lorelai and Rory just could not say, “No” to Luke, the Kims, Sookie or Richard and Emily and wound up attending four Thanksgiving dinners in one day? The odd collection of dinners included one tofurkey, one deep fried turkey, an argument about vases and flowers followed by stilted conversation and an openly hostile shouting match held across a well appointed table.

thirtysomething: In season one, Hope was reluctant to host Thanksgiving dinner for all their friends. She wanted to spend a quiet holiday with just her, Michael and their baby. But Michael persisted and whined that they should have a Thanksgiving dinner. The compromise was that Hope would allow him to have the dinner, but she was going to do something else, like sort through photos. Then Michael and the baby got sick, quickly followed by Hope. However their friends pulled together, something, kind of -- Elliot and Nancy took their kids out for fast food -- and wound up piling into Hope’s bed at the end of the night, one big, happy, messy, sick family.

Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving TV episode?

Image credit: AMC via Best Television Shows.

Who Knew Playing Don Draper Was So Dangerous?

Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper on Mad Men, appeared on Conan O’Brien’s show last night and talked about how he had to go to the hospital, TWICE, after sustaining injuries while pretending to be Don Draper. His on set injuries included: Seven stitches on his head, a broken hand and a separated shoulder.

During the interview, Hamm told O'Brien about a scene he shot with Elisabeth Moss in which she firmly shook his hand, which was broken at the time. The pain from the handshake brought him to his knees. Guess being Don isn't all Old Fashioneds, smokes and dapper duds.

Tempting Trailers: 'Morning Glory,' 'Love and Other Drugs,' 'Company Men'

When it comes to DVD movie rentals from Netflix, I’ve been having a spot of bad luck lately chosing good films. I’ve not been fond of the last several movies I watched including Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Greenberg and State of Play, during which I fell asleep. (It surprised me that I disliked State of Play given that it’s a journalism movie and I started out in print journalism.)

That being said, I’ve seen a few trailers recently for movies which look promising -- other than the new Harry Potter movie, of course -- but who can tell if they’ll actually be any good? Oftentimes I’m intrigued by the trailer then wind up hating the film. But still . . . I’m a sucker for these promos.

Though reviewers are saying that the TV morning show-centric rom-com Morning Glory -- out today -- is exceedingly fluffy, they also seem to be in agreement that Rachel McAdams is very good in it. The New York Times said the film -- which also stars Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton – is “a passably amusing romantic comedy,” and that McAdams is “effortlessly likable,” calling her a “young actress on the verge of the big time.” The Boston Globe likened McAdams’ morning TV news show producer character to Mary Tyler Moore. You know, the one who’s gonna make it after all. I’m desperately in need of a feel good movie right about now, if anything, it’ll offset the darkness of the In Treatment episodes I’ve been watching.



Another trailer that has caught my attention is the one for the new Anne Hathaway/Jake Gyllenhaal slightly darker rom-com Love and Other Drugs which is slated to be released on Nov. 24 I hope this one isn’t a letdown or just labeled "passable."


Love And Other Drugs Trailer

One film that’s not at all lighthearted romantic fare but, nonetheless I’m anxious to see was shot around Massachusetts, The Company Men, about the affect of downsizing on an up-and-coming professional with a young family, on two older execs, one with a kid in college, and on the folks left behind. It stars Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Chris Cooper, Craig T. Nelson and Tommy Lee Jones and opens on Dec. 10.



Any films you’re looking forward to seeing in November and December?

Gryffindor Trio Share 'Harry Potter' Experiences with Magazine

The three, young, seemingly well adjusted stars of the Harry Potter films -- who’ve spent the last 10 years of their lives on camera -- gave great interviews to Entertainment Weekly about their experiences playing Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley for half their lives. (It's worth noting that none of these three actors have been involved in scandals, under-aged drinking and drug-taking incidents or other bad behavior during this period.)

Best parts of the EW interviews:

-- Daniel Radcliffe, 21, said he was in the bath when his family got the news that he’d been selected to play Harry Potter. Then he cried. He was 11 years old. “It was probably the best moment of my life,” Radcliffe told the magazine.

-- Actress Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Bellatrix Lestrange, said of Rupert Grint, 22, (Ron Weasley), “He’s a bit like Luna Lovegood, you know? He’s on his own moon.” Then the article described how Grint bought an ice cream truck after he got his driver’s license. Seriously.

-- EW also put together a video of the child-actors’ facing aging from the first Potter film to the last.
Image credit: Entertainment Weekly.

'Simpsons' Lampoon 'Twilight' with Harry Potter's Help

 Vampires. A werewolf, actually, a werepoodle. And Daniel Radcliffe’s voice, otherwise known as Harry Potter. All of those elements were mashed together on a recent installment of The Simpsons where Homer was himself turned into a vampire after Lisa was romanced by the dashing, pint-sized “Edmund” in a sly take on the Twilight mania.

Loved the werepoodle.

'Mad Men's' Don Draper Says What?

On a particularly insane day for me, watching this short video of Mad Men's Don Draper (the fabulous Jon Hamm) saying, "What?!" a bazillion times and in very different ways, was just what I needed. The ending made me laugh.

Notes on Pop Culture: Media Expectations of Women, 'In Treatment' & Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

Image credit: CBS

Media Expectations of Women

Did you hear about the recent controversy involving two twentysomething Glee actresses posing provocatively for GQ while wearing their panties and sucking on lollipops? Or about a Marie Claire writer’s hateful attack on CBS’ Mike & Molly in which the writer said she doesn’t want to watch overweight people walk across the room never mind kiss one another on a primetime television sitcom. Or did you happen to read the New York Times’ hard-hitting analysis of female politicians’ choice of attire?

My pop culture and politics column this week took on all three of those issues and concluded that, collectively, they send a pretty lousy message: That young female celebrities have to debase themselves sexually in order to get media attention and then suffer the intense criticism for doing so (no such requirement for young male celebs), that having overweight men in leading roles on TV shows doesn’t prompt ugly attacks though a leading overweight woman does, and that no matter how a female politician dresses she’s going to be attacked by fashion writers as either dressing too “mannishly” or too sexy in “rump-hugging” skirts. It’s a fairly grumpy piece, if I do say so myself.

Season 3 - Week 2 Preview

In Treatment

HBO’s In Treatment . . . we’re now in week two, eight sessions into Paul Weston’s third season. And I’m just as enthralled as I was in the first.

Of the new patients, I’m most intrigued by Frances, played by Debra Winger, and by Paul himself facing off against his new therapist Adele as he’s increasingly fearful that he has Parkinson’s, like his father.

This is becoming my favorite indulgence of the week, watching Paul and his patients. I find that I do absolutely no multi-tasking (no BlackBerry, no laptop, etc.) while this is on because I want to catch every glance and gesture.

Deeply Written TV Characters Wreck My Enjoyment of Films

After reading a Boston Globe article published the weekend Mad Men’s season finale aired, I realized the truth in what the writer, Matthew Gilbert, was saying: All of these complicated, anti-hero characters on cable dramas -- Don Draper from Mad Men, Tommy Gavin from Rescue Me, Paul from In Treatment, Tony Soprano from The Sopranos, Walter White from Breaking Bad, etc. -- have been so nuanced and deep that movie characters, by comparison, seem pretty shallow. I then proceeded to wonder how much better, say, The Town, would’ve been had it been a cable TV drama (instead of a film) on my recent CliqueClack TV post. And I was really entertained by The Town.

Image credit: CBS.

Notes on Pop Culture: Hamm on Lackluster 'SNL,' Stewart's Rally for the Sane Middle, 'Grey's' Goes Documentary-Style

Jon Hamm Does His Best with Lackluster SNL Skits

The faux Back to the Future screen tests and the YouTube victim skits were moderately amusing but other than those sketches, the Saturday Night Live writers sure let the earnest Jon Hamm down with the material they gave him. Hamm did a great Robin Williams impression and his best with the Auto-Tune crying bit, (which, incidentally made me think of the folks who put crying Don Draper images into all different scenes, like BuzzFeed’s “Things That Make Don Draper Cry” post and the web site devoted to “Sad Don Draper”) 

But overall, I was left wondering what is going on there at SNL and why so many of the sketches have been falling flat lately. They’ve certainly been proving the truth in the adage: “Comedy is hard.” There’s a reason why Modern Family is such a gem; it’s reliably funny.


Those of you who caught SNL this weekend care to weigh in?



Stewart's Rally for Sanity & Promoting the Middle

Let’s not mince words: The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart leans toward the liberal side of things, but he’s unafraid to call both sides of the political aisle to task for being idiotic, close-minded or full of vapid talking points. (See his pointed interview with President Obama last week, in which he called the president "dude.")

But that being said, his satirical rally in Washington, D.C. over the weekend was but one more step in Stewart’s long-running campaign against the promotion of explicitly partisan, divisive, shouting verbiage on cable TV, initially commenced with his broadside against the CNN political talk show Crossfire in 2004 when he asked, “Why do we have to fight?” Stewart proceeded to skewer the show -- as well as shows like it -- in front of its gobsmacked hosts, saying, “Stop hurting America.” Some folks actually credited Stewart’s appearance that night with killing Crossfire.