Oh gee. With all the laudatory posts about Stewart, I guess
I'm going to have to revisit him. I always had trouble with his demeanor, he seems too snide for me, but I DO recognize
his contributions and his worth. Many thanks to you.

Hear Hear!

Stewart is one of the few on television who made the last eight years bearable.

The thing Cramer doesn't say is "the regulators", the SEC, are so underfunded by our Government to regulate guys like Cramer's actions (on the "hyperbolic" statement he made on tape) that they know the odds are very, very minuscule of being caught.

The Snake Oil Salesman analogy was wonderful. It set the tone for the entire interview. Cramer was back pedaling for his life. Cramer was thoroughly ass whipped by a superior intellect with a bigger backbone. I was looking for the old SNL Martin Short character's flop lip sweat to pop up.

Stewart should continue to do what he does. He's more powerful in this position than becoming a politician. That would only ruin him.

RATED

I couldn't belive how unprepared Cramer seemed ... he HAD to know what was coming ...

It was good though ... very, very good. It was so uncomfortable that it seemed to last an hour ...

"Mad Money" Cramer met his match and Stewart was brilliant!

Rated

If only Cramer had been this tough on his guests.

Brilliant, fucking brilliant. How could Cramer prepare? His record is out there and Stewart and his crew shrewdly had that 2006 interview Cramer did to drive the point home. These guys know the game; they know what's really going on or at least have the connections to find out but then plead "how could we know?" when the chickens come home to roost.

To follow on the statement above from Kind of Blue, I'm not sure the SEC is as underfunded as it is misdirected. They are all lawyers, not finance guys. It takes a thief to catch a thief. The SEC needs to be rebuilt top to bottom.

This is great television. and Stewart is a champ, as he's been throughout the Bush administration. Let's show him the respect of spelling his name correctly- J-O-N.

Brilliant.

Stewart did a good job asking challenging questions and, as others have noted, Cramer seemed totally unprepared. It was almost like he was on a sedative that dulled his alertness and responsiveness.

Two observations:

1. There seems to be a lot of taking on of talk show and TV hosts as if they are real representatives of conservative and free market ideas. While I am certain there are many political figures who are invited and refuse to go on some shows, I suspect there are many conservative intellectuals (yes, I used that term) that would welcome a chance to be on a show like Stewart's. I don't watch the show enough to know how often they are invited. The times I have watched, Stewart seems to invite people who either know how to play along with his game or, in the case of Cramer, Stewart can put into a hole so deep that it takes very good skills to dig out.

2. Let's hope that Stewart applies the same level of rigor and indignation to actions of the Obama Administration that do not pass the common man/common sense test. Ask simple questions that challenge at the moral level and have a tone of indignation. Find out whether the Obama defenders can provide the intellectual answers that overcome that. Cramer clearly could not.

Susanne: this is a great post. He has provided some sunlight here. they cynic in me says this is Sumner Redstone tweaking NBC-Universal and GE. I struggle with one issue, where the hell are the so-called "real" journalists? rated.

I don't often watch John Stewart, and now I'm thinking that has been a mistake. Thank you for sharing this fabulous clip. Rated.

Wow. I just read the NYTimes article on the clip. WTF. They really think Cramer came out on top? Or are they just trying to distract from the fact that Jon Stewart seems to be the only person taking CNBC down? Ugh. What a smug, "oh we're so above these little media wrestling matches on the networks," tone in that article. If I actually subscribed to the print edition I would cancel it.

Jon's researchers are my heroes. Jon just says it with passion. It is J-O-N.

That is the finest moment of his that I have ever seen. Crazy to say, it was a moment of profound, direct honesty. He mirrored my feelings exactly with his final comment.

The Republican-controlled media becomes more absurd every day. As my husband would say, the "news" as conceived by Republicans is usually about personalities and individuals rather than real news.
Jim Cramer's "beef" with Jon Stewart is another example of a Republican "smokescreen".....that is, "creating news" that is actually worthless, yet making it into something "important" as the Republican-engineered economy, the Republican TARP handout, the Republican failure to address global warming (how'd everybody like this past winter? Get ready...this past winter is the future!! And a flooded spring and a scorching summer still to come!!) fail and fail and fail some more!! Republican hypocrisy is enough to make me vomit on a daily basis!!!!

Oh sheesh, I should have never read the NYT article. Now I too am livid. So many media outlets have lost their way and refuse to do their job (because it is expensive to investigate, but very cheap to pay a monkey to scream). And so few people call them out for it. They certainly don't call each other out. So the NYT is obligated to defend Cramer; it is the same thing as defending themselves. This incident reminds me of Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondents Dinner appearance, where Colbert was as hard on the journalists as he was on George Bush. In both of these cases it took the "court jesters" to speak the truth. Your analogy, Susanne, is perfect.

Dang...! The video is now copyright infringed, so I can't see it. Dang...! I love Jon Stewart. He get's it done when the evening news is delivering pablum and scripted propaganda.

Absolutely perfect. Finally got to see the interview - via Comedy Network's site, with TWO commercials - and it was better than I expected. Better than the smackdown of the nancy boys on Crossfire. He truly was speaking for me and you and you and You.

Cramer's an idiot, a shark, a missile, goes where he's pointed, or where the coordinates say to go.

Great post Susanne. I agree your Court Jester analogy is perfect.

My GOD!!!!! What have we become? Slobbering over a comedian?

Please!!!! This is pathetic.

Pathetic? Why? Do explain...

I worked at the SEC in the late 1970's until 1981, we enforced the law in those days. I doubt we were funded any better, but we did have a mandate to enforce the law, and we did. The leadership of Executive Branch agencies is by political appointment. That leadership reflected the political will of the prevailing leadership which was anti-regulation. Congress repealed some of the regulations that protected us. It was a cocktail for failure to regulate.

Cramer must have thought a casual mea culpa for a tiny slice would ward off the stake to the heart. The Daily Show's preparation was canny and spot on. I was anticipating the handshake and a thanks for being a good sport much earlier, but roll clip 210 and then 212. I thought the "sin of commission" part was the coup de grace.

Just read that Morning Joe, which has often featured Cramer, had him on today and did not mention the Stewart interview!

Really awful what has happened to "the media.' Stewart and Bill Maher, Olermann and Maddow have become the ones I watch, if I watch. I've found listening to music has calmed me and spared me many miseries about the news and newsmakers.

ditto what Lea just said, though my shock experience has been The Today Show, in their supposedly 'serious news' first half hour, prominently continuing to feature Cramer as an 'expert', allowing him to spew his blather. First I tried mute, then I switched channels. now I don't bother watching. Sad. Because i worry that some people may mistakenly miss the point that he's a lunatic fringe idiot.

My husband and I watched this intently twice! We love Jon Stewart anyway and his persistant and never say die way with controversial guests amazes me. I always think he will have to let the guest off the hook sooner to lighten things up but he asks some serious questions at times and just handles the discomfort. The hypocrisy of the market "edutainment" was revealed.

Good post, Susanne.

Bruce: follow the linked words in the last sentence and you can see it all.

What I find rather stupid is that Cramer went on the show at all. Stewart is smarter and does this kind of thing for a living. So of course he was going to tear Cramer an new________.

I have watched Cramer a few times and I think he plays the perfect twit on his own show. He is smarter than he appears and the clips that Stewart showed prove the he is culpable. His ego got the best of him in those old clips and shows that while he knows how to run a hedge fund he can't keep his mouth shut when he thinks he is in the lime light. Like Freaky, he doesn't look good in green.

Monte

I dvr The Daily show every night and watch it during coffee and the morning paper. Why Cramer ever agreed to be a guest is beyond me. I think he felt that Stewart would shake hands and maybe fire off a couple barbs and the whole thing would be laid to rest.
I've never seen Stewart go after a guest like that. It was shear poetry to watch. I used to like Cramer as a quest on MSNBC, but he has lost all credibility with me. What an ass whooping. I don't think Cramer will ever be the same after that. Wow!

Wow. Jon Stewart, I think I may be in love with you. You NAILED this guy and then threw chicken guts at him. I almost felt sorry for Cramer. Not quite, but almost.

Loved the line 'How weird is our world when Cramer is making pastry with Martha Stewart, and SHE'S the one who went to prison?" It does rather put the utter weirdness of the 21st century into perspective!

Shiral, I knew that it was going to be a spanking when he started with the Martha Stewart tape. Geeze!

hear hear!

Thanks Susanne for re-linking. Stewart did more for the truth than anyone at any of the networks.

My GOD!!!!! What have we become? Slobbering over a comedian?

Please!!!! This is pathetic.

Well, I guess it IS pathetic when a comedian does a better job of exposing the fact we got taken by a bunch of slick robber barons and calling them on it, than the supposed "serious" news programs do. The NYT, the Wall Street Journal, and every other newspaper in America not to mention all the TV news sources, should have been holding their feet to the fire. My sympathy is limited for the fading fortunes of newspapers. Maybe if they began doing their jobs properly again, more people would resubscribe, and Jon Stewart wouldn't have to step in to show them how to have enough spine and courage to call out those who have screwed us at grave cost to the financial well-being of almost everyone. Maybe the whole country would be better if TV and newspaper journalists hadn't tiptoed around, declinging to call anyone from the President on down on the crap that was going on for the past eight years out of the fear of that scathing reproach "the Liberal Media." The old Republican objection to being challenged in any way.

So true! Stewart decimated Kramer, and I'll never get tired of watching that clip. Maybe now we'll see fewer of those snake oil sales rep blowhards on TV.