Why The Jon Stewart Vs Jim Cramer "Event" Was Important

It's tempting to write off last week's furiously-hyped confrontation between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer as just another publicity stunt or a simple grab for ratings. What I think some of the viewers of that segment of The Daily Show are missing, though, is that those two gentlemen actually held a vitally relevant conversation that's been going on in offices, bars and households across North America over the past several months. They did it without yelling at each other, without falling back into the easy comfort of "talking points" (as so often happens on news programs), and with just enough humour thrown in to make it entertaining without diluting their various points. Yes, Cramer walked into the ring and capitulated almost fully from the opening bell, but he also provided at least a few of the arguments that we can expect CEOs and other enablers of the credit boom/bust to use in their defense.

Between that "TV event" (which had more substance than we normally get on the Tube) and the rising tsunami of anger over the AIG bonus payout (especially in light of a vast amount of the reward money flowing into the business unit responsible for the credit disaster), there's a feeling right now reminiscent of fictional Howard Beale's "Mad as hell" speech in the film, Network. What I sense isn't the usual resignation that goes along with these indignities - yeah, it all sucks, but what are you gonna do? - but rather an expectation that something has to be done about it this time. Whether that's actually borne out or not, it's too early to say. I don't know that we'll truly see any improvements in how the business world is held accountable in the future, but - if nothing else - at least there's a huge appetite for it at the moment and the right sort of person in the White House to make it a strong possibility. And if enough of the Jon Stewarts out there make sufficient noise about it, maybe... just maybe... change really will come to America!

Thanks to AgileBoy, I can provide links to the uncut clips from The Daily Show for Canadian readers: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. There's a lot more content there than made it onto the edited version that aired on Thursday night. So you should really check it out.