As long as Fox News continues to present itself as “fair and balanced,” Jon Stewart will have plenty of material to work with.

The lunatic fringe has consumed the right. Funny stuff.

Jon Stewart calls out Beck for grossly flip-flopping on the quality of U.S. health care. Beck has either lost his mind or is a total hypocrite. You be the judge.

The bit starts at the 0:30 mark.

I’m all for the debate, but when you have loons like Beck running around stoking the fears of the ignorant, it’s a recipe for chaos.

Maybe that’s what the anti-reform people want.

Since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President, we’ve seen the lunatic fringe on the right push the limits of idiocy. Since his election, the levels of insanity on the right have grown exponentially.

The “birther” movement has set a new standard, even by the standards of the loony right wing. They make the teabaggers looks like sober economic scholars.

Naturally, Jon Stewart, the most trusted newsman in America following the death of Cronkite, has a field day with this one.

Pay particular attention to his smackdown of Lou Dobbs, who brings up “questions” surrounding Obama’s place of birth several days after a guest host ON HIS OWN SHOW completely debunks the asinine story. Further proof that Lou Dobbs is a complete buffoon. Why is this clown still on CNN?

More like incompetent media if you ask me.

Liberals bloggers are having a field day ripping John King for his terrible interview of Dick Cheney. Naturally, Arianna Huffington skewered King with her usual flair.

Jon Stewart’s Jim Cramer interview was a pivotal moment — not just for Stewart, Cramer, and CNBC but also for journalism. It was a bracing reminder of what great research and a journalist more committed to getting to the truth than to landing the big get — and keeping the big get happy, and ensuring future big gets — can accomplish.

Stewart kept popping into my head as I watched John King interview Dick Cheney on Sunday. Each time King let Cheney get away with spouting gross inaccuracies and revisionist history, I kept thinking how different things would have been had Stewart been asking the questions. Stewart without the comedy and without the outrage — just armed with the facts and the willingness to ask tough questions.

King consistently refused to challenge anything Cheney said by asking tough follow-up questions. Also, when citing problematic facts, he would always couch them with timid qualifiers.

“There are people…” “They would say…” “And they have some numbers to back up their case.”

These are not some numbers that belong to some people being trotted to make their case. These numbers are actual data — empirical evidence. It would be as if King were interviewing a flat-earther and asked him: “There are people on this planet, watching this interview right now, who would say that the earth is round. And they have some pictures taken from outer space to back up their case. So what would you say to someone out there who is saying that?”

King’s desperate attempt to distance himself from the question would be laughable if it weren’t so repellent. It’s not him asking Cheney why we should listen to him. It’s not him putting forward objective data. It’s some strawman viewers, so please don’t hold it against him. And please, please come back. And tell your friends.

This is the problem with King and too many in the Pontius Pilot traditional media: They are so caught up in the obsolete notion that the truth always lies in the middle, they have to pretend that there are two sides to every issue — and even two sides to straightforward data.

Someone needs to kidnap King and take him to a deprogramming center — preferably one run by Jon Stewart and his team.

If CNN can’t use John Stewart, then perhaps they can have Fareed Zakaria handle all important interviews. The executives at CNN should be commended for putting Zakaria’s excellent GPS program on the air, and to some extent that makes up for spineless hacks like John King.

In 2004, Jon Stewart went on “Crossfire” and said what most of us thought – the show sucked and the cable media was destroying journalism.

“Crossfire” was canceled several months later.

Naturally, Tucker Carlson wasn’t impressed with Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer.

“Jim Cramer may be sweaty and pathetic—he certainly was last night—but he’s not responsible for the current recession,” Carlson told POLITICO. “His real sin was attacking Obama’s economic policies. If he hadn’t done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart’s doing Obama’s bidding. It’s that simple.”

Begala said that “as an Overpaid TV Guy myself, I hate to see the Overpaid TV Community ripped apart in this time of crisis.”

As to whether Stewart’s takedown could again impact cable punditry, Begala said he had “no clue.”

This is pretty pathetic, and it highlights how bad Jim Cramer’s appearance was on The Daily Show.

A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today. In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn’t sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. “I enjoyed it thoroughly,” the Press Secretary said.

On Cramer’s network, CNBC, the subject has only come up twice today, including when master marketer/CNBC personality Donny Deutsch brought it up briefly around 1pm on “Power Lunch.” “I’m a huge Jon Stewart fan,” said Deutsch, “He does what he does he does his job. But I’m also a huge Jim Cramer fan. He sticks up for the little guy, he cares, he puts his neck out, and I respect that. I respect both those guys.”

How embarrassing. In effect, Stewart destroyed Cramer’s credibility and painted CNBC as a bunch of fools, but MSNBC honchos decided not to respond. This suggests that there might be serious consequences.

Turns out this interview was a very bad idea for Jim Cramer. Jon Stewart makes him look like a fool.

Gerardo brought you Jon Stewart’s skewering of the know-nothing know-it-alls over at CNBC. While most of the CNBC personalities wisely kept their mouths shut, Jim Cramer called foul, saying that Stewart’s claim that Cramer said to buy Bear Stearns stock days before it collapsed was false.

Okay, so Cramer didn’t give a “buy” recommendation in the original video, but five days later he basically gave it a “hold” recommendation and seven weeks before it collapsed he literally asked people to go out and buy Bear Stearns stock.

So then Cramer goes around to the NBC shows — “The Today Show,” “Morning Joe,” etc. — and badmouths Stewart…for what? Calling him out?

Jim, here’s some free advice: Don’t get into a war with Jon Stewart. You’re just going to lose. He’s funnier than you, has better researchers than you do, but mostly…he’s right. You are supposed to be one of the nation’s leading financial experts and you didn’t see this financial collapse coming. Anytime that someone suggested a market downturn, he was shouted down on CNBC and every other financial network out there.

So my advice to you is to take your lumps and move on. Starting a feud with Stewart is only going to give him more ammunition to roll clips of you making a horrible recommendation (or several horrible recommendations). Stock market bubbles start because guys like you create a false sense of urgency and security. But every single time the market has a steep rise, there is some sort of correction, and this one is/was worse than most.

I know your first instinct is to defend yourself. But you were wrong about Bear Stearns and countless other stocks over the past few months. Quit grousing about someone calling you out for not doing your job. Get over it.

I’ve been stunned by what I’ve been seeing on CNBC. After most of the clowns on this networks completely missed the financial crisis, we have them lecturing the Obama administration about its efforts to dig us out of this mess and address long-term problems like health care and energy.

Rick Santelli has received the most press with his idiotic rant, but Jim Cramer has pushed the envelope on irresponsible rhetoric, calling Obama “Lenin” and saying he wants to destroy capitalism. This over-the-top rhetoric is absurd, particularly when you watch the video below. Cramer has been so spectacularly wrong about the banks that he looks like a complete fool now.

Jon Stewart reminds us that CNBC just sucks.

Bill O’Reilly is entertaining as hell, mostly because of his ability to contradict himself on a consistent basis. For example, he repeatedly says he supports the right to privacy in the constitution, yet he also says he wants conservative judges. He doen’t seem to understand that conservative judicial philosophy looks at the right to privacy as one of the worst examples of liberals expanding the rights under the constitution.

Jon Stewart has fun with O’Reilly in the clip blow, as O’Reilly attacks the paparazzi who stalk celebrities, but then encourages his own producers to stalk anyone who has the audacity to disagree with him on an issue. What a putz.

The Daily Show has a field day with Sarah Palin’s town.