Stewart's Right: Screeching CNBC Is Whacked

(NEWSER) - Who won last night’s cable grudge match between Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer? Let’s go to the scorecards:

• Stewart was the clear winner, clobbering his guest with “homespun, regular-guy relentlessness,” Maureen Ryan writes in the Chicago Tribune. “Cramer didn’t know what hit him.”
• The weird part was that Cramer barely defended himself from “Crossfire Jon,” Howard Kurtz says in the Washington Post. “Cramer was playing rope-a-dope while Stewart swung away. It was a mismatch.”

(NEWSER) - Jim Cramer took his lumps tonight from Jon Stewart in their highly anticipated Daily Show faceoff. "I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a game," Stewart told Cramer, adding an expletive. "I can't reconcile the brilliance and knowledge that you have of the intricacies of the market with the crazy I see you do every night," he said. Cramer disagreed on points but acknowledged that he's "fair game," the AP reports. More»

(NEWSER) - In anticipation of his visit with Jon Stewart on tonight’s Daily Show, an admittedly “nervous” Jim Cramer sought counsel today from another Stewart—Martha. “You should be nervous,” the lifestyle maven said on her syndicated show. “He’s fast as lightning.” The Mad Money host joked that the feud has elevated his profile at home, reports the Los Angeles Times. “My kids only know I have a show because Jon Stewart is skewering me.” More»

(NEWSER) - NBC CEO Jeff Zucker said today that Jon Stewart’s Daily Show attacks are “incredibly unfair to CNBC and the business media,” Broadcasting & Cable reports. “CNBC is a spectacular organization and in particular Jim Cramer,” Zucker continued. “What is going on now is absurd.” The media isn’t responsible for the financial crisis, he said, in the same way it’s not to blame for the Iraq war. More»

(NEWSER) - Jon Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer and CNBC is indicative of a real, if fleeting, sea change in our attitudes about the economy, Thomas Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal. “The applause Mr. Stewart has received for his j’accuse is the sound of the old order cracking.” But “clueless pundits often do get on top” and “stay there,” Frank writes, “despite all manner of rebukes handed down by history itself.” More»