Jon Stewart is not just a comedian tonight!

[Dr.Phool]

He ate Cramers lunch, and made him admit he's a douche bag.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Stewart was brilliant

I've never seen anything like that on TV.

And on Comedy Central, no less.

The MSM should be ashamed of itself.

[valerief]

2. Comedy Central has balls. Vive Comedy Central! nt

[RubyDuby in GA]

3. I almost felt sorry for Cramer. That was harsh.

Then I remembered how Cramer is anti-union, then thought what the hell - hit him again Jon!

[Mira]

4. I know what you mean about "almost" feeling sorry for him, and then taking it

all in, the deception and weaseling guilt of it all, I cheered Jon - who was beyond brilliant and masterfully prepared.
This was historic.

[ovidsen]

5. Jon Stewart was EXCELLENT!

But I have to give points to Kramer, and not just for showing up. He admitted that his show was as much entertainment as information; he conceded he had been reguarly LIED to by Wall Street types he had known for decades (be honest. None of us has a foolproof bulls**t detector), and he emphasized that he has campaigned for years against "short selling", "derivatives deals", and similar investment techniques in which (to put it in very simple terms) "investors" bet on a company (or an economy) to fail. If they won (when the firms or nations they bet would fail did just that), they walked away with fortunes, just by pushing around and signing some papers representing OPM... Other People's Money. OUR money. In our 401-Ks, IRAs, home loans, and so on. If WE were lucky, we managed to keep our portfolios in the black, because (of course) we had made what we thought were 'safe' investments (our homes, retirement funds) at at first, they at least held teir own. If the deals fell through for these speculators, they still made lots on paper (commissions, fees, etc.), while the rest of us saw our reasonably "safe" investments (in our homes, 401-Ks, etc.) rise, if a bit unrealistically.

Then the bottom fell out of the market. The short traders made mass killings. The rest of us? Road kill. Chum. To his credit, Kramer as of late (and Stewart didn't challenge this) has consistently voiced his opposition to these kinds of parasitic "money making", "sure-fire", "can't lose" short selling paper deals.

I liked Kramer before tonight. I still like him. I think he's honest. Not perfect; not incapable of saying and doing really stupid things. But compared to, say Bernie Madoff or Donald Trump, he's a damn saint.

And let's never forget what he said nearly 2 years ago about the Fed, head Ben Bernanke, and the under-regulated markets in general. I especially liked the part where he screamed, "THEY KNOW NOTHING!" Know what? He was right,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU

Kramer isn't a prophet. But he saw this coming a long time before most of the rest of us did, and I'm not going to take that way from him.

My applause to both of these very smart, but not too egotistic media icons.

(Updated to clarify)

[ShortnFiery]

6. Not me. I believe Cramer to be a sociopath and devoid of true remorse or conscious.

Don't be fooled. Cramer fell on his sword NOT for any noble reason but so he can be propped up by his buddies and continue on with the status quo.

The only kicker is that NO-ONE at CNBC thought that Jon would figuratively annihilate him.

God Bless Jon Stewart! :patriot:

[ovidsen]

8. We'll have to respectfully agree to disagree, ShortnFirey

I think the impact of Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer is still only beginning to be analyzed and digested.

I still don't think Cramer is the devil reincarnate. In a business (banks, stocks, mutual. hedge and money market funds, selling long, selling short, flipping houses) where the results from a crystal ball or a dart board could rival the findings of the most astute, well read, hooked on research analyst, Cramer (IMO) does a good job of translating the financially unfathomable into concepts that most of us can understand. At least, sort of.

Nearly two years ago, Cramer (sometimes very loudly) warned about the house of cards that both consumers and professionals (both the honest, scrupulous and well meaning ones and the repugnant ones) were building stupendous net assets with subprime mortgages, second mortgages, those gilded wrapped pieces of garbage sold as investment derivatives, the continuing flow of dollars to other countries, the national debt, buying stocks on margin, and the other potholes on what many of us saw as the endless, perfectly built freeway to unlimited wealth, or at least to a very comfortable retirement.

If Cramer can be faulted for anything, it's that he was not more strident and vocal about the economic turmoil that the US, and the world, were facing. But then again, no one else was, either. And nobody... NOBODY... predicted that the mess we're now in would appear so quickly and affect us so deeply. Losing 35% to 40% of the value of your 401-K in a year or so is NOT something you can just brush off and say, "So what? Tomorrow is another day... "

To sum it up, Cramer (for a Wall Street insider) is basically an honest, if a bit hyperbolic voice of intelligence and reason who is (IMO) on the side of the average guy. That's us. Or at least me.

As for Jon Stewart? Lord, his performance was brilliant. His questions to Cramer surgically cut right to the bone. His use of those 2005 video clips was genius. Stewart is clearly a really smart, well read guy. And he knows exactly how to ask the most difficult and controversial questions with clarity, openness, and just enough humor to dampen his guests' instinctive desire to build up an impregnable wall discouraging them from giving honest, or at least not blatantly dishonest answers to provocative questions.

Stewart should be the host of a show like "Meet the Press", or "Face the Nation". He's so much better than the present hosts, whose names I have conveniently forgotten. To call Stewart "just an entertainer" is like calling Barak Obama "just a politician".

Edited for clarity. If that's possible.

[ClusterFreak]

7. One does wonder however...

...why Cramer felt the need to call out Jon in print and on the Today show this week?

Behind his back, Cramer the "not too egotistic media icon" dismissed Jon as merely a "comedian" and a host of a "variety show".

To his face...Cramer bowed and scraped and "aw shucked" and looked like a cowed mongerel who misbehaved and was now snooping around for his supper.