Vampire TV: "Crossfire" Comes Back

Six years ago Jon Stewart nailed the “partisan hacks” of CNN’s weeknight food fight by telling them on camera, “You’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great.”

Soon afterward, Crossfire disappeared but now CNN is starved for ratings, Stewart is temporarily away, and the program is rising from the undead with, appropriately enough, Newt Gingrich as one of the regular ghouls, along with conservative cutie S.E. Cupp vs. two former Obama fringe dwellers, Stephanie Cutter and Van Jones.

“We look forward to the opportunity to host passionate conversation from all sides of the political spectrum,” says CNN’s president. “Crossfire will be the forum where America holds its great debates.”

Uh-huh. The show aired on weeknights from 1982 to 2005, featuring such mouths as Rupert Murdoch, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Rush Limbaugh, Arianna Huffington and Howard Cosell before ending up with Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala, Robert Novak and James Carville.

At the 1997 White House Correspondents’ Dinner Bill Clinton joshed about the “very first Crossfire–-from the left, Alexander Hamilton, from the right, Aaron Burr, topic, gun control.”

Jon Stewart, come back soon. We’ll need you to drive another stake through this resurrected bloodsucker.