Happen to have a link?

Yikes. That was uncomfortable.

I feel sorry for Cramer. He was in a tough position -- being righteously bawled-out by John Stewart, for a situation for which he's not responsible. And, he took it with good grace.

Not that John wasn't right. He was spot-on, in fact. He just used Cramer as a surrugate for all the greedy, manipulative bastards who are responsible for this financial mess. And Cramer really seems to be a good, knowledgeable guy.

I've been seeing a lot of people make this objection, even going as far as to say that Jon "picked the wrong target" for "making his statement" and so on. I think that maybe this is a misunderstanding of what was actually happening, although I'm not blaming anyone because it's very easy to construe the interview that way.

My understanding was that Stewart never intended Cramer to be a "target",  nor did he intend the interview to be a chance to "pwn him" or anything like that. It looks as if it started off as a broader critique of CNBC, but that the resulting back-and-forth between Stewart and Cramer unexpectedly caught so much of the media's attention  that it culminated in this interview. Jon and Cramer probably did this interview to put the "feud" and related media circus to rest. But while they happened to be there, why not talk more about Jon's original remarks about CNBC and their journalistic ethics? I think many of the viewers, and maybe even initially Cramer, were thinking Jon was using this opportunity to smack Cramer around. (Forgiveable, since Stewart did market it that way, albeit jokingly. Perhaps ironic, since his biggest beef with Cramer is how Cramer markets himself.) I don't think that's what Stewart was going for, though, and I think Cramer came to the same conclusion somewhere in the middle.

As far as Stewart trying to "connect the dots" in the clips of Cramer, I initially thought he was trying to connect Cramer to shady activity as well. But as the interview went on, it seemed more to me that he wasn't trying to indicate that Cramer was INVOLVED in any kind of shady business. He was only trying to indicate that Cramer has a more informed UNDERSTANDING of what shady business was going on and how it operated, and he was trying to suggest that maybe Cramer is doing the general public a disservice by "keeping the secrets" so to speak, and not giving us the information we could use.

In other words, he seems to be suggesting to Cramer that you don't have to open your mouth to be a liar. Withholding the truth is also a form of lying. Then he was simply asking if Cramer could reconcile that with the intention of his show. That seemed to me to be the point of his showing the videos.

But isn't that what Jon Stewart does? I think people only hate you if you point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes while marketing yourself as the kind of person who doesn't do that sort of thing.

One criticism I will make of Jon Stewart, though, despite the fact that I don't believe it's something he does intentionally: He does seem to dominate the discussion in many of his interviews. I don't think he's actively trying to talk over his guests. Maybe it's just excitement or the pressure of fitting a potentially three-hour discussion into a ten-minute segment, but he does tend to interrupt and dominate. I wish Comedy Central would grant him a longer time slot so that his interviews would have time to get into a little more substance. But I doubt that's gonna happen.

In fairness to Cramer (and I only offer this to be the thread's token contrarian):

He's paid by the network to tell people what stocks he's picking. Like, that's his job. I mean, if a TV network approached you and asked you if you wanted to have a show where you just told people what stocks you currently like, and offered to pay you to do that show, you'd decline the offer?

Cramer is hardly doing anything dishonest or immoral by telling people what stocks he's buying and why he's buying them; he's not ging to be right all of the time and shouldn't be expected to be right all of time.

That said, yeah - Jon Stewart was spot-on when he talked about the way CNBC marketed 'Mad Money'. That is unethical, as it directly says to the viewer, "Just relax and let Jimmy do your thinking for you."

Honestly, it's an advertising scheme that hurts both the viewer and Cramer when he makes the inevitable poor judgement call.

Jim would also do himself a large service by not being as show-boaty and emotional as he gets (though this might just be a poor habit that's effectively become part of his personality). That said, I imagine he is fairly effective at making an otherwise rather dull topic entertaining as a result.

I actually thought the interview itself was very civil. I don't think either party really attacked the other, and they certainly didn' appear all that upset by the end. If you really want to see Jon destroying someone brutally, see his appearance on 'Crossfire' (which is now defunct, as a result of said destroying ).

Jon is a jester. If he announces that the emporer is naked, we all laugh. When Cramer, who is supposed to be a serious man in his own way, announces the same thing we are appalled. If Jon annouces that he could break laws on television and never get in trouble, we would all have a chuckle. When Cramer says it, it sounds sinister. It sounds as though Cramer is amoral and the government can't stop him from violating whichever financial laws he wants to.

Jon is in a privileged position to say things because he is a funny man. If I ran the daily show and said all the same things Jon did, you would be crying or screaming or in stunned silence on account of how fucked up things are by the end of the episode. That show would be grim if anyone but a comedian hosted it.

Do you really believe that? "Class warfare"? Really? Jon is not exacerbating class warfare. He is pointing out scummy marketing techniques used by a rival network and claiming that good inverstors like Cramer understand sinister plots run by bad investors and yet choose not to warn us; but he isn't lending support to class warfare.

 Yes,Stewart gave Crammer a real beat down and ripped him a new one. 

It was the best tongue lashing I've ever seen on T.V. Cramer's position was nearly indefensible, whereas Stewart's was undeniable.