The much anticipated “Rumble” between FOX news host Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart got off to a rocky start Saturday evening after the site that was supposed to be livestreaming the debate crashed minutes before the debate was set to begin.
At approximately 7:55 pm the login-in page jammed on the site, stopping thousands of users who had paid the mandatory $4.95 to watch the debate from viewing it live. It wasn’t until an hour later at 8:55 or thereabouts that the login-in page came back up and viewers were able to watch the last half-hour of the duo’s debate.
“Due 2 overwhelming demand, our servers have been overloaded. We apologize for any inconvenience and we’re working to resolve the issue,” the debate’s hosts said over twitter via @therumble2012 when the site began working again.
“If you missed any of the debate, it will be available on-demand shortly after,” read a second tweet.
Subscribers of “The Rumble 2012” online are allowed three livestreams and a video or audio download, according to the site’s frequently asked questions section.
Twitter users who bought tickets to the debate and were unable to watch it immediately wanted to know if refunds would be given out and why the site wasn’t more prepared to handle the traffic, which was very much expected (after all users had to pre-order tickets to livestream it), but the event organizers still had not provided answers at the time of this post.
By Sunday morning the Rumble website had been updated with both the download link for the debate and the ability to watch an on-demand replay on the site, as well as the following message:
Only attendees of the live event, which was held on George Washington University’s campus in Washington, D.C., were able to watch the first half of the debate as it took place Saturday evening.
The half of the debate that online viewers could watch, however, was decent and teetered back and forth from the serious to the ridiculous. Although faux news host Stewart provided most of the comical moments, O’Reilly cracked a few jokes himself, saying that if he could choose anyone to run for President he would select Clint Eastwood.
Stewart gave a surprising amount of honest commentary about his political views.
One of the most notable, serious comment from Stewart was about the state of the current presidential race.
When asked by an audience member, ” I understand voting for Obama the first time, but why vote for him again this year?” Stewart paused for a moment and said,” “I don’t know what to tell you kid.”
He clarified a few moments later that, “It’s a choice between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and I guess that’s how you’ll make your decision.”
O’Reilly seemed similarly disenchanted with the choice facing Americans in November, saying at one point that he agreed that both Romney and Obama have lied over the course of the campaign.
“They all do it, unfortunately, what are you gonna do,” he said.
In fact, O’Reilly seemed to be in favor of radically overhauling the U.S. democracy in general in order to produce better candidates and outcomes. at one point during the debate he said that if it weren’t for the Constitution, he’d argue that the United States should be a more “participatory democracy” in which you can’t vote unless you voted the previous election in order to encourage more people to this vote. This comment came just minutes before he made fun of the average uniformed Americans and DC outsiders who will be asking questions at the Vice Presidential townhall next Thursday that have likely been asked and answered of candidates multiple times over throughout the course of the campaign.
One of Stewart’s most revealing moments was when he said that he thinks the United States should bring back the draft.
“Kids should have one year where they should have to do some form of service,” he said, adding that the government service could be through the military or some other government program, though he declined to specify what other programs would fit his definition of national service.
The program ended with a question from an audience member that was fitting for Stewart’s predominately under 40 following. The questions was along the lines of what the two talk show hosts’ advice to youth would be.
“You don’t want to get the seeds. I don’t know if they still have LP’s, but if they do, you want to get the shake,” Stewart said, making a weed joke.
“[Work hard, be honest, get off the net, go outside, travel, find your passion,” O’Reilly said. “Everyone’s good at something. Find what you’re good at and make money at it,” he said to cheers from the audience.
This post has been updated to include additional information.
