Right on the heels of Jon Stewart’s spectacular evisceration of CNBC’s Jim Cramer, CBS’ 60 Minutes scores an incredible “get”–an interview with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

This should be good, right? Um, no. CBS Correspondent Scott Pelley makes Jon Stewart look like Lowell Bergman. Half of Pelley’s interview consists of sophomoric questions like: When will it end? Will unemployment get into double digits? Are we out of the woods yet?

You know. The sort of questions only an idiotic Fed Chairman would try to answer.

The other half of the interview (incredibly!) consists of gosh-and-golly commentary on the Fed’s fancy meeting room and B-roll footage of pallets of cash robotically scooting around in its vaults.

If Stewart had been conducting the interview, I can’t help but believe it would have been a lot more entertaining (e.g., “so, who decided to skip the place cards, and go with bronze nameplates embedded in the backs of chairs? Why not put the names on individual Jumbotrons? The room seems big enough…”), AND would have included questions like:

What are we to make of the market’s schizophrenic activity? Which regulatory changes are needed most? What advice do you have for Americans whose retirement 401k plans have been vaporized?

So, in the year 2009, we’re getting our best corporate journalism from Comedy Central? This just in from national correspondent Amy Poehler: “Really? Really?”

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