I know that “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart does not need even more praise for his spot-on comic and very real jabs at the CNBC financial cable network and its milquetoast coverage of the financial crisis, pre and post.

The silliness that prevails too much over doing serious and rigorous reporting that Stewart takes perfect aim at is a major problem.

Taking CEO spinning at face value and letting them yammer on on air without being challenged much at all has always been excruciating to watch at best and woefully irresponsible at worst.

But, to my mind, the most important thing that he elicited out of CNBC’s most famous stock jester, Jim Cramer, was the part of the interview discussing using the malleable press to float fictional rumors about companies in order to make money on the negative news.

While Cramer at first tried to deny he did it, Stewart had the videotape of the “Mad Money” host talking about the practice, specifically in regard to Apple (AAPL).

His appalling idea to make a quick buck? Making it up that the mobile carriers did not like the iPhone right before Macworld, in this case in 2006.

“And this is very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it’s credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn’t…comment,” said Cramer cavalierly, as if he was not talking about a way to essentially steal other people’s money and hurt Apple unfairly, to interviewer Aaron Task, then at Cramer’s own TheStreet.com.

“So it’s really an ideal short. And again if I were short Apple, I’d pick up the phone and I’d do that today.“

Bernie Madoff would be so proud, if he wasn’t otherwise imprisoned for life!

Kind of puts all those Steve-Jobs-Is-Dead-Right-Now rumors of a few months ago into a new light?

It’s been obvious that the legendary Apple CEO has been quite ill from his appearance alone.

But, as BoomTown has always maintained, the rumors written without any serious reporting about him were also a troublesome issue because it was that clear short-sellers played a large part in stoking the fear about his imminent demise, given how important Jobs has been to Apple.

(Although, this has not seemed to stop Apple from releasing a lot of really cool stuff of late, like the new Shuffle, which Walt Mossberg reviewed here.)

While Apple has not been adequately forthcoming, either, about the Jobs situation, that does not mean the press–as Stewart correctly points out–should not try to actually do its job and dig for what is really going on rather than just slap up unsubstantiated blather.

“It’s not a f@#*ing game,” said Stewart perfectly. Indeed not.

You can see Cramer cynically discussing the Apple stock manipulation tricks at the 6:45-minute mark of Part 2, but here is the entire Stewart well-deserved roasting of Cramer in three parts.

(And at the bottom is the Task interview with Cramer too.)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

TheStreet.com Interview:

Ben Ling–the high-profile Facebook platform exec who came from Google less than a year ago and then up and left the social-networking site earlier this week–is about to head back to Google, this time taking a job leading monetization efforts at YouTube, according to several sources.

On Tuesday, BoomTown reported that Ling (pictured here) was leaving his job at Facebook, where he has been director of platform product marketing.

At the time, Ling would not be specific as to his reasons for leaving, saying in an interview: “Facebook is a tremendous organization, and I would not leave it if it were not for a great opportunity.”

And that opportunity apparently entails returning to his previous employer, where Ling once worked on Google’s Checkout product and other e-commerce platform efforts.

Ling’s is a move that will surely spur many to rev up the Facebook-versus-Google (GOOG) stories, given that several top Google execs–such as COO Sheryl Sandberg and PR and Platform head Elliot Schrage, as well many others–have been recruited by Facebook over the last year.

Apparently, the Empire does strike back.

Interestingly, Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed the YouTube monetization issue in an appearance on CNBC’s “Mad Money with Jim Kramer” yesterday.

Here’s a transcript of the section where they discussed YouTube:

CRAMER: LET’S SPEAK ABOUT A QUESTION THAT, AGAIN, I’M TRYING ADDRESS THE QUESTIONS HOLDING THE STOCK DOWN. YOU HAVE TREMENDOUS DOWNLOADS IN YOUTUBE ARE EXTRAORDINARY.

SCHMIDT: BUT EVENTUALLY WE’D LIKE TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF IT, BUT IF WE DON’T, THE FACT THAT SO MANY PEOPLE COME TO YOUTUBE MEANS THEY ULTIMATELY GOOGLE AND DO GOOGLE SEARCHES AND CLICK ON ADS. SO DON’T BE TOO WORRIED ABOUT ALL THAT TRAFFIC GOING TO YOUTUBE. I’D BE WORRIED IF PEOPLE WEREN’T USING YOUTUBE. SINCE IT IS AN ENORMOUS SUCCESS GLOBALLY WE KNOW WE WILL BENEFIT.

Valleywag ran an item earlier today speculating that Ling might be on his way back to the mother ship, noting he was spotted having lunch there recently.