Kicking Bear When It's Down

You know it's a bad day when your company -- or you, personally -- become the punch line of a joke on a late-night talk show.

It was Bear Stearns' turn on Friday, when Jay Leno devoted part of his The Tonight Show monologue to the arrest of two of the defunct firm's hedge-fund managers.

"Yesterday, a bunch of these Bear Stearns hedge funds guys were arrested for shady business practices. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade, today Bear Stearns ... announced they're opening a new division specializing in bail bonds."

"The government says they're focusing on some e-mails that show these guys may have given bad investment advice. For example, a lot of the e-mails began, 'I'm a diplomat currently living in exile in Nigeria...' "

by Mark Stein