Stewart Vs Cramer on Daily Show, march 12.

[Hammerskjold]

Even the TV professionals get burned (Cramer on Bear Stearns), Geraldo (weekly), or dead (Steve Irwin vs Sting Ray) on occasion. I think Jon Stewart is doing the comedians version of the WWF. All showmanship, good entertainment, with everyone walking away richer and good friends.

I'm wondering if we saw the same episode. I'm wondering if we're even seing the same show here. You did watch the episode right?

The whole tiff didnt start with Cramer, it was originally with Rick Santelli's ahem, loud musings. For some reason, Cramer thought it was all about him. At one point of the episode, Stewart even said this isn't really about Cramer's sideshow antics, or his stock picks at CNBC.

And 'walking away richer and good friends?' Do you have any evidence of that? I'm just curious here. I know Stewart is most likely doing way better financially than me. But I really have a hard time believing off camera, Stewart and someone like say... Tucker Carlson are lighting each other's cigar with 100$ bills and back-slapping each other.

This is in fact the same case I would make about Coulter, Franken, or any other "pundit". They are there to make some money, promote a book, and keep themselves in the spotlight.

There's one important difference here IMO. Stewart and Colbert never hides the fact that they play fake journalist and hyper-pundit (in the case of Colbert). The biggest joke of all being with that admission alone, they seem to have more honesty than most of the current media puppets and stooges.

My experience has been that the TV is not a very good window on the world.

TV does produce a lot of dross, but so does a lot of other media. It didn't create a masterpiece like say, Demolition Man. But here's some IMO, some good shows that may give people pause before dismissing all TV as the idiot box.

- Mad Men
- The Wire
- South Park (IMO, season 3 upwards is when they really started to sharpen and shine.)
- The Simpsons Halloween and Christmas Specials
- Battlestar Galactica (the new one)

edited to fix quote tags.