Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer

Had you heard about this 'showdown'? If not, go to The Daily Show's official website to watch clips of last night's show.

Its hard not to lionize what Jon Stewart and his crew do on the Daily Show four nights a week.

Many nights its funny and not serious, sometimes its not funny at all, and often enough, its serious and funny and 'kick you in the ass' righteous.

The corporate dogs that drive mainstream media don't care about the mission of the press in our society. The Daily Show does. It asks - pleads - for the mainstream media to seek truth and do reporting so The Daily Show doesn't have to.

And I'm quite sure there are a lot of journalism school graduates who would agree; if given the chance, they'd do fantastic reporting.

We live in a world in which its customary and acceptable to believe in or promote the facade as much as the gritty underbelly.

First the press didn't have the courage to speak out against the mud-slinging Bush administration when they got us into war in Iraq, and now they're so deeply embedded with the big money managers and corporations that they didn't report the truth about how our economy works.

Jon Stewart isn't a lone crusader, but he and his staff are courageous, articulate, pointed, and appealing in their effort to speak truth to power.

I'm grateful they're good at what they do because it makes me feel my thoughts are being voiced.

I'm trying to walk a fine line between expressing how valuable I think their work is and being clear that I know they think it should be done by someone other than comedians.

I ask, though....why? Mark Twain and Will Rogers did political, social, and media commentary with a sense of humor.

I understand the larger point though - mainstream media...its you're job - start doing it!

Jim Cramer's contribution to this discussion is that he's thin-skinned, took the criticism of CNBC personally, and really believes he's different from all the others.

Eh. Not so much, I think.

He's willing to play the game by whatever rules the corporate fat cats decide. He played their game and won money. Big deal.

Its a short-term game that relies on most of the players being ignorant of the rules or being willing to sacrifice their integrity for financial gain.

That's nothing to be proud of.