What should really embarrass all journalists is that it took Jon Stewart to simply point out the obvious: I am the entertainer; you are the journalist.
When Stewart isn't cracking jokes, he's lecturing Cramer to be a journalist. And Cramer's lamely accepts at one point: "How about if I try, trying doing that. I'll do that!" And the "that"--Cramer says it so enthusiastically, you can see the light bulb going on over his head--is basic journalism.
Stewart's line with Cramer is reminiscent of the scolding he laid down on Tucker Carlson of the old Crossfire days. That is: I do the jokes (and I'm way better at it than you) and you reports the facts and analyze them fairly--our republic's survival depends on all of us knowing this distinction.
What Stewart exposed is cringe-inducing now that we can all see it. The entire CNBC network was a parade of loud clowns and chuckling suits who were little more than small-town boosters tossing candy and beads. Actually, it was smaller than a town parade. A show like Cramer's has a viewership of a few hundred thousand. Even for cable, barely okay. CNBC's viewers were mid-level market enthusiasts, people who make above, say, $500,000 and who made a significant market adjustment in their portfolio once a week or so. For them, listening to CNBC allowed them to imagine they were Warren Buffett. The entire network fluffed into existence a dreamscape of risk-taking courage, occupied by bold men who fancied themselves wielding their buy orders and their futures like swords--a place that owed less to Adam Smith than to John Cheever (via Walter Scott). But the reality was that they were just normal men on the Long Island Expressway, punching in the pin number to their Fidelity accounts on their cell phones while stuck in traffic on the way to the country house of a friend whose wife (he's sure of it) desires him.
And now? They are all just brave, brave Sir Robins. The market will never again be the steeplechase to 36,000. It will be our granddad's market, the 1950s market with an annual grey-flannel increase of 1.2 percent, if we're lucky. I'd love to know how many of those weekend warriors are watching CNBC these days. The network will be lucky to survive last night.