John Steward interviewed CNBC’s ‘Mad Money’ host Jim Cramer the other night.

On one hand, a well- respected journalist, on the other … a clown.

A measure of how far our culture has been compromised by economic interests. Variety had this to say:

“Up to now, no media figure that could match Cramer or any of the other CNBC personalities has actually called them on their history of misguided punditry. As much as Stewart has decried “cheap populism,” his comments were reflective of the anger of anyone who has seen vast savings cut in half, not fully understanding what happened and wondering why they’d invested so much in a market that really was fraught with risk. In the coming days there will be ample debate on how fair it was to direct so much populist anger at Cramer himself — he’s not Madoff, after all — but what Stewart did is redirect criticism to the system that got us into this mess, rather than the government that’s trying to bail us out.”

Unfortunately, the government is trying to bail out the system, not ‘us’. The system was ‘supposed’ to take care of us … but only at a remove. The system’s reliance on debt and the saturation of all economic actvities by debt has come to its conclusion. Some earning power is required to purchase goods. When purchasing power is almost entirely borrowed, there is ultimately no purchasing power at all.

Meanwhile, somebody has to have sell idea that the Great Wall Street Gambling Casino allows ordinary people to win every now and then … otherwise there are no 401K or pension savings available to ‘invest’.

In this way, Stewart the Journalist was unfair to Cramer the Clown, who had done nothing but his job… which is to tout the economy’s glittery high- end products to passersby. Cramer and his ilk are creations of bull markets. Their task is to make the seamy task of zero- sum theft not just respectable but fun. While Stewart accuses Cramer of having fore- knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the Debt Machine and lacking the integrity to announce this to the public, he himself knows how the media enablers work. After all, he is one, himself.

Isn’t that part of the problem? Isn’t Jon Stewart just another tout, himself? Isn’t ‘The Daily Show’ on Comedy Central simply another product? Says Stewart:

Selling this idea that you don’t have to do anything.

Anytime you sell people the idea that sit back and you’ll can get ten or twenty percent on your money? Don’t you always know that is going to be a lie?

When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is work?

So … what’s Stewart’s beef? When was the last time he actually had do to a day’s real work? Isn’t Jon Stewart a multi- millionaire? How much return does Stewart get on his money? A little easy outrage orchestrated by a producer to allow some cheap – and pointless – catharsis.

Another reason to throw away the television, America. The lies about lies – the frauds about the frauds – are almost convincing.

When are we going to see some indictments?