They both did. Cramer “won” by showing up, taking his medicine, and making it harder for Stewart to keep making (justifiable) attacks. In the long run, Cramer didn’t do any further damage to his already shaky image and he probably enjoyed being in a bigger limelight than usual. Since Cramer has been exposed as a hyperbolic conman in the past, his reputation couldn’t be lowered more in the eyes of most investors.

The Comedy Central host, however, was the big winner.  Stewart proved to be as funny as David Letterman, as economically insightful as Paul Krugman, as fearless as Ed Murrow, and as consumer-centric as Ralph Nader (the good, early Nader). And Stewart crammed more tough economic and political questioning and reporting into one 15 minute interview than CNBC or even NBC’s Meet the Press does in a month of Sundays.

Sadly, Stewart dramatically displayed, for all to see, why ostensibly professional journalists can’t do their jobs anymore. Stewart’s honest and straight forward approach to holding Cramer and CNBC accountable was reminiscent of David Letterman being the only person on national TV willing to ask Sen. John McCain about his association with known terrorist G. Gordon Liddy. In Letterman’s case, he had to ask the tough question because mainstream reporters were afraid of being criticized by conservatives for asking a question that could be perceived as helpful to liberals. In the Cramer/CNBC case, financial and political journalists have been afraid to ask tough questions for fear of being painted as “biased” against business. Stewart, freed of the responsibility of waging a PR campaign to proclaim his journalistic credentials, was able to actually fulfill the much neglected journalistic tasks of asking tough questions and finding out who did what to whom to get us into this economic crisis.

Sadly, the next generation of Woodward and Bernstein investigative journalists would be well-advised to skip journalism school and college altogether. Instead, they should go straight into stand-up comedy and begin playing their craft, all the while shunning the title of reporter.  

Judge for yourself. Here is the TV debate, http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?collectionId=221532