“Jim Cramer may be sweaty and pathetic—he certainly was last night—but he’s not responsible for the current recession,” Carlson told POLITICO. “His real sin was attacking Obama’s economic policies. If he hadn’t done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart’s doing Obama’s bidding. It’s that simple.”
Begala said that “as an Overpaid TV Guy myself, I hate to see the Overpaid TV Community ripped apart in this time of crisis.”
As to whether Stewart’s takedown could again impact cable punditry, Begala said he had “no clue.”
Friday brought more tumult for CNBC anchor Jim Cramer, when the chief executive of his online financial news site, The Street.com, resigned.
The company announced Friday that Thomas Clarke, TheStreet.com’s CEO for the past decade, would be leaving, effective immediately. He’s been temporarily replaced by Daryl Otte, a longtime director on the company’s board, who will serve as chief until the search committee, which he is leading, finds a new CEO.
Who knows the reasons behind Clarke’s decision, but the timing suggests that Cramer’s flameout is not going over well in the financial community.
This is pretty pathetic, and it highlights how bad Jim Cramer’s appearance was on The Daily Show.
A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today. In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn’t sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. “I enjoyed it thoroughly,” the Press Secretary said.
On Cramer’s network, CNBC, the subject has only come up twice today, including when master marketer/CNBC personality Donny Deutsch brought it up briefly around 1pm on “Power Lunch.” “I’m a huge Jon Stewart fan,” said Deutsch, “He does what he does he does his job. But I’m also a huge Jim Cramer fan. He sticks up for the little guy, he cares, he puts his neck out, and I respect that. I respect both those guys.”
How embarrassing. In effect, Stewart destroyed Cramer’s credibility and painted CNBC as a bunch of fools, but MSNBC honchos decided not to respond. This suggests that there might be serious consequences.
Gerardo brought you Jon Stewart’s skewering of the know-nothing know-it-alls over at CNBC. While most of the CNBC personalities wisely kept their mouths shut, Jim Cramer called foul, saying that Stewart’s claim that Cramer said to buy Bear Stearns stock days before it collapsed was false.
Okay, so Cramer didn’t give a “buy” recommendation in the original video, but five days later he basically gave it a “hold” recommendation and seven weeks before it collapsed he literally asked people to go out and buy Bear Stearns stock.
So then Cramer goes around to the NBC shows — “The Today Show,” “Morning Joe,” etc. — and badmouths Stewart…for what? Calling him out?
Jim, here’s some free advice: Don’t get into a war with Jon Stewart. You’re just going to lose. He’s funnier than you, has better researchers than you do, but mostly…he’s right. You are supposed to be one of the nation’s leading financial experts and you didn’t see this financial collapse coming. Anytime that someone suggested a market downturn, he was shouted down on CNBC and every other financial network out there.
So my advice to you is to take your lumps and move on. Starting a feud with Stewart is only going to give him more ammunition to roll clips of you making a horrible recommendation (or several horrible recommendations). Stock market bubbles start because guys like you create a false sense of urgency and security. But every single time the market has a steep rise, there is some sort of correction, and this one is/was worse than most.
I know your first instinct is to defend yourself. But you were wrong about Bear Stearns and countless other stocks over the past few months. Quit grousing about someone calling you out for not doing your job. Get over it.
I’ve been stunned by what I’ve been seeing on CNBC. After most of the clowns on this networks completely missed the financial crisis, we have them lecturing the Obama administration about its efforts to dig us out of this mess and address long-term problems like health care and energy.
Rick Santelli has received the most press with his idiotic rant, but Jim Cramer has pushed the envelope on irresponsible rhetoric, calling Obama “Lenin” and saying he wants to destroy capitalism. This over-the-top rhetoric is absurd, particularly when you watch the video below. Cramer has been so spectacularly wrong about the banks that he looks like a complete fool now.
