I was in Washington this week, where most satire happens, however inadvertently, and on a plane back to SF when Jon Stewart apparently crashed through a(nother) cultural barrier: for several years we'd been hand-wringing about the Daily Show replacing traditional news sources. Now, after just a few minutes of confrontational video, it's become the gold standard for news. And, in that same moment, Mr. Stewart himself, as the Atlantic's James Fallows said, has turned into the Edward R. Murrow of our era.

Please. Jon Stewart did a fine and riveting job of holding Jim Cramer embarrassingly accountable for his seemingly hypocritical behavior, not as a clowning-around and popular CNBC madman -- a stock ticker Soupy Sales, but as a financial savant who blatantly hustled his customers and his audience. When last night's interview was over, it felt like Mr. Cramer should be cuffed and paraded in the Wall Street perp walk along with Bernie Madoff.

Maybe that wasn't entirely fair and Mr. Cramer's stuttering acceptance of guilt didn't mean that he was as guilty as, say, Merrill's John Thain.

But let's not be such journalism panic suckers ourselves. Sure, our industry is in trouble. But is Jon Stewart's Cramer inquisition more bad news for journalists who aren't comedians? Will Katie Couric be replaced by someone with a big red nose and floppy shoes? If I can't do successful stand-up, how come Jon Stewart gets to be a reporter? Does this mean the end of journalistic standards and practices?

No.

By now, others have noted the similarity between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer. Both came from other worlds and use their long expertise to both entertain and provide their viewers with information. Stewart, no question, seems more righteous, is definitely funnier and points out the bad habits of powerful people and institutions instead of pimping them. And accountability has always been a big part of journalism's guiding precepts.

But Edward R. Murrow?

I didn't know Edward R. Murrow. I didn't serve with Edward R. Murrow. Edward R. Murrow was not a friend of mine. But I do know that Jon Stewart is not Edward R. Murrow. But neither is he Carrot Top. He is more like Jonathan Swift, the brilliant 17th/18th century satirist and author of "Gulliver's Travels." Only Mr. Stewart uses all sorts of contemporary visual and electronic tricks to enhance the effect.

I think Fallows might have been conflating Murrow, whose courageous and probing reporting and broadcasting stemmed the ferocious bullying by Senator Joe McCarthy, and Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, who famously asked the anti-commie crusader during a hearing, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Jon Stewart did both: he pressed Cramer, using the CNBC host's own video interviews to trap him (just like Tim Russert used to do), and then relentlessly called him out on the contradictions. The full quote from 1954 was: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That's pretty much what Jon Stewart said to Jim Cramer, only it took him longer.

This does not mean that "The Daily Show" has stopped being satire and has become news. Satire is still just a great way contemporary society is getting its news. It's just that this particular segment had no real laughs but, for a lot of people, it provided satisfaction.