“Wag The Debate:” Punditry Future

“A panel discussion on whether cable debate shows like CNN’s recently canceled “Crossfire” have screamed themselves out of business ended in — what else — a shouting match,” the AP says. The discussion, titled “Wag the Debate: What’s the Future of the Pundit?,” took place at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen on Saturday. (Here’s the press release.)

TVNewser asked panel moderator Joe Scarborough to describe what happened: “It started out as a calm discussion — and then Eric Alterman called Bush a liar. Laura Ingraham and I ignored it the first time, and then Janeane Garofalo said the Bush administration and people who support it are basically stupid, and wrong 95% of the time, and we let that go…Ten minutes into it, Eric went on another lecture about how he could prove that Bush was the biggest liar in the history of the White House. And he acted like this was not opinion, this was fact. At that point Laura jumped in, and it sort of spiraled downward really quickly…

“It was great though because we were sitting there supposedly having an academic debate for the first five minutes, and I was actually kind of concerned, because people were stirring in their seats. But after 15 minutes, I wasn’t concerned anymore.”

Scarborough said the panelists got along well before and after the discussion. Here’s the AP story…