I‘ve been trying to enjoy the little culture skirmish that surfaced last week as media watchdog Jon Stewart of the Comedy Central took comedian Jim Cramer of CNBC to task for failing to warn the public that the valuation of  houses, equities, municipal bonds, commodities, and every other financial asset in the global economy had gone bubblistic. (Video of their on-air confrontation here – in multiple segments.)

This story (the pointless media dust-up, not the dramatic global asset devaluation) was important enough to be covered on virtually every public affairs TV show over the weekend.  From my casual observation, the common sense response came from George Will on ABC’s This Week (starts at 3:33 from the end).  Marveling at the idea that anyone could mistake Cramer for an objective journalist, he offered three bits of folksy wisdom:

• Never play poker with a guy named “Slim”
• Don’t buy a Rolex from a guy who is out of breath
• Don’t take stock tips from a man that is shouting

Words to live by…