In fact I would trust Stewart more than Cramer since at least, chances of some hidden agenda - such as making his CEO friends happy at the end of the quarter by pushing a stock up - is a bit less likely.

Yes, Cramer has had a long career as advisor. Now tell me this: You meet a new man to manage your money, and he starts acting like a kid who's been fed nothing but pure sugar and caffeine for a month. Do you trust him with your cash?

Cramer's credibility ended the day he decided to become a media superstar.

@RvLeshrac:

You can catch TDS on CNN.

I saw Stewart's show tonight with Cramer . Stewart nailed him and CNBC .

Stewart took Cramer & CNBC to task for not doing good reporting . Cramer more or less admitted that he should have been able to see the problems coming . Cramer said many of his CEO guests lied on his show . But if he were really reporting or looking for facts shouldn't Cramer an ex-reporter himself pressed his guests a little harder or did better pre-show research ?

I also read where many think CNBC and others acted like cheerleaders when the market was going up but not digging for or reporting all the facts .

Stewart got this one .

Never, ever, ever attract the attention of the Jester if you can avoid it, and if he does look at you, smile once and then back away. The Jester always wins because a) he's smarter than he lets on and b) he's got a special place in the court that lets him get away with things that would be a beheading for anyone else. Plus, the people always love him more by default.

Looking forward to the showdown!

I'm talking about Stewart. You keep checking back with what Stewart told you to think. And then go back to looking at everyone but Stewart.

I already said the guys on Crossfire were buffoons. I am agreeing with Stewart.

I just don't agree with Stewart's holier-than-you grilling of other people - and saying that he himself can't be grilled.

You're actually holding Stewart to a lower standard than the people he's grilling, simply because Jon invokes the magic word "comedian."

He's a comedian. He's a social commentator. He's a pundit. He's a lot of things. And he's just as responsible for what he does and says as anyone else.

If John Kerry is on his show and he throws softball questions and kisses his ass... then that's fucking lame. And if he wants to say "who me not me I'm just a comedian" and then switch into serious mode and attack people... then that's fucking lame.

I think Stewart's point was that the financial networks are nothing more then large marketing arms for corporations. The information that they dish out, is designed to encourage individual investors to spend money. One long commercial 24 x 7. That's fine as long as you see it for what it is.

The Cramer's and Santelli's of the world are freaked out because these guys want to make you believe that they are doing the consumers a service, and Stewart had the gaul to point out that they are the schills that they are.

NEVER Heckle a comic!

Thanks for making my day!

@ComcastRedwoodFlyer: To call the models those sites used to evaluate his 'picks' is disingenuous at best.

I wish Stewart would really skewer some instutions which are run by the two major parties. Such as the Commission on Presidential Debates, jointly run by former heads of the Democratic and Republican National Committees, which is responsible for the infomerical-like, two party only quality of the ~debates~. Hammer those fools and Stewart would be proven as an equal opportunity satirist...

@Trai_Dep:

Yep, but the question is whether the Daily Show is actually making them better informed, or the type of people who watch the Daily Show are better informed to begin with.

@ Trai_Dep Which study was that?

I don't know why I can't get the videos at the top to work; I'm not even outside the U.S.

I love it when two democrats scream at each other.

Cramer's actually quite a populist. He'll be sincere, likable, honest about (some of) his failings, and able to quickly change the public's mind about the network in a heartbeat. It's all too easy, after all, to deflect the blame onto AIG, Madoff, banks, and others. From a PR perspective this will be an easy wriggle.

And by the way, where the hell is my comment preview button?

@kwsventures: Either you are a liar or you've had your head buried deep in the conservative echo chamber sand way to long. Which is it? Please enlighten me.

firstly, its a show that has a big emphasis on picking stocks so its already weighted against cramer, the question is should he take his money out of bear sterns? while it could be an investment question, it could be a stock question, which is notable because they show a graph of bear sterns STOCK. they didn't show an FDIC graph, or anything like that, it was STOCK. and he said bear sterns was fine. he definitely didn't say sell it.

cramer was wrong on this.

@Mr.DuckSauce,

Do you?

There is no satire in his attacks on Jim Cramer. It's a lot closer to Edward R. Murrow than Robert Benchley.

And that's my point. Sometimes Stewart uses his show to make comedy and sometimes he uses it for more serious issues. And that's awesome. But Jon wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

You can't hold people to the fire and then not hold yourself up to the same scrutiny.

@Dyscord:

Those guys on Crossfire were buffoons but one of their points was on the mark: Stewart missed an opportunity to seriously question Kerry. His position that he doesn't have to doesn't ring any truer than the position of the guys he was grilling.

They're pundits. He's a pundit. You can play semantics, but his calling them out was simply disingenous based on his own interviewing. I mean, c'mon, you expect Tucker Carlson to do serious journalism?

If you go back and watch the Crossfire segment, John dodges the ridiculous questions from the hosts or people in the audience during the segment by pretending he didn't know about the bulge in Bush's jacket or O'Reilly's sex scandal. Of course he knew. He didn't want to get involved. I agree with him. But while he has the tremendous freedom on his show to do whatever he wants - flip from serious grilling of a guy like Jim Cramer to - then sudenly say "I'm a comedian" when he throws softballs at John Kerry...

Look, it's the pot calling the kettle black. If the newspeople grill these people hard, they lose access. Stewart knows that and that's why he doesn't take on someone like Kerry.

re: your 2nd point: If Kramer was so prescient about calling the housing crisis, then why did he recommend buying stock in any financial firm that was so entangled in the reverberations of the housing crisis?

CNN's whole purpose is to deliver the news. TDS's purpose is to make you laugh. The fact that a lot of people seem to get a better understanding of current events from TDS is rather embarassing for CNN.

Whether people take it seriously or not, god bless The Daily Show and Jon Stewart.

Give 'em hell, Jon!

Why is this article on The Consumerist so blatantly anti-Cramer?

I mean, I have to deal with this crap on other sites, I didn't expect it from The Consumerist.

Stewart is really a not so-secret journalist and commentator. Despite his assertions to the contrary, his is a fake news show that has the freedom to mix in real news and views - when they want. And they do. But whenever someone says "Hey Jon, why didn't YOU do blank" Jon says ""who me not me not responsible I'm just a comedian."

That's code for "I'm not responsible for anything."

It's not that Jon isn't a social commentator or pundit. Whenever someone like Bill Maher point out Jon is, Jon goes right back to the "who me schtick."

It's immature. This is the same as when Jon went after Crossfire. He wants pundits to responsible for what they say. He wants financial pundits to be responsible for what they say.

Jon, be responsible for what you say. Stop being such a pussy.

I loved Crossfire (especially the Ragin Cajun). F--- Stewart for basically ending it.

What no one points out here is that Stewart's underlings at the Daily Show did a poor job cherrypicking Cramer quotes, he got called out on it by Cramer, so they did even more cherrypicking and finally found some quotes of Cramer recommending the purchase of Bear Sterns. Find me someone in Cramer's business who didn't make a poor stock pick before this disaster happened. The problem is, there are two important facts that Stewart doesn't mention:

1. Cramer called the housing crisis a year before it happened, much more important than a bad stock pick.
2. Stewart was originally calling out Cramer for criticizing Obama's economic policies, basically insinuating that because Cramer made some poor stock picks that he's not qualified to criticize Obama's economic policies.

I can't believe I'm the only one defending Cramer here since I'm a moderate, politically-informed college student and should be gargling Stewart's semen just like the rest of you. Just once though, I urge all of you to take a step back and realize that it doesn't always taste that great.

A serious (or so it claims) news channel is trying to debunk A COMEDIAN. They lost simply by starting this horse race.

turd mining.

my new favorite activity.

The Daily Show audience bloodied the national news shows viewers, eviscerated Fox News viewers and stole the wives of O'Reilly viewers and did horrible, horrible things to them.

So, "fake news" for smarter-than-average audiences. :)

I have no problem admitting that I get some of my news from The Daily Show. While CNN is preoccupied with what kind of dog the Obama's are gonna get, TDS actually reveals the idiocy of our government and finds different "stories within the stories."

[consumerist.com]

[idiocracyindex.com]

Jon Stewart is a PROFESSIONAL COMEDIAN. Don't keep engaging him; you can't win.

For most of us mortals, there's only two ways to sensibly trade the market. Buy individual stocks that you somehow understand better than the majority of the market, like the mythical small trader who bought into a shoe company because his teenage daughter told him it was cool (but watch out for those insider trading laws...). Or buy blue chips and index funds for the long haul.

For those of us unfortunates who can't see the clips...

Round 2:

Round 3:

Boy, I can't wait!

I just found it odd that cramer was on colbert tough.

This is the modern day equivalent. Never pick a fight with somebody who is paid for mockery.

And we all thought Stewart's job was going to be a lot harder with Bush out of the White House. He should send Cramer a Thank You note!

Jon Stewart *IS* just a comedian, and he'll happily tell you that. One of the reasons the show has taken a slightly more news-reporting twist in recent memory is because they're all acutely aware of the fact that a LOT of people turn to The Daily Show to get their *real* news, despite regular reminders that TDS is a *fake news* show.

Cramer (and MSNBC) getting upset simply underscores the fact that TDS is more than a fake news show, and that Jon has, despite his wishes, become far more than "just a comedian."

I haven't looked forward to anything this much since Bill O'Reily and Stephen Colbert traded guest spots on each other's shows.

This could be like the Oscar's and the Superbowl combined... but the thing about Jon Stewart is that in crucial times he sometimes kowtows a little too much and is too deferential, playing the whole, "I could be wrong and I'm just a basic cable talk show host..."

I hope this will be more like when he was on Crossfire and lambasted Tucker Carlson though.