It’s A Sad Commentary…
By Mitch Berg
…when a smug, preening, pseudo-Ivy-league prettyboy who has convinced a generation of bobbleheads that snark is news and who couldn’t tie his shoes without a couple of writers and producers working the angles for him…
…is the closest thing we have to a financial journalist these days:
Jon Stewart hammered Jim Cramer and his network, CNBC, in their anticipated face-off on “The Daily Show,” repeatedly chastising the “Mad Money” host for putting entertainment above journalism.”I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a … game,” Stewart told Cramer, adding in an expletive during the show’s Thursday taping. The episode was scheduled to air at 11 p.m. EDT on Comedy Central.
Outside conservative talkradio, anyway.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Stewart sez : ”I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it’s not a … game,”
Cramers should have sez : ”I understand that you want to make politics entertaining, but it’s not a … game,”
There is ZERO difference between what Cramer does and what Stewart does.
March 13th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I watched him last night (I don’t have cable, so I never get him at home). Smug and arrogant, he is the face of modern Liberalism. But he is a giant next to the cockroach that follows him.
Colbert (It French, ya know!), spent 15 minutes hammering Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. He came to the conclusion that all of her so-called producers were assholes.
Then he and Howard Fineman sagely agreed that John Gault’s island would be popluated by assholes.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I have no love for Stewart, but speaking of cockroaches, Cramer was trapped under a glass jar & running in circles trying to hide from the light.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Your beef shouldn’t be with Stewart, Mitch. He’s just doing what people like Jack Parr and others did 40 or so years ago. He’s a comedian and an entertainer.
Your beef should be with the viewers who ELEVATE his status to more than it is.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:20 am
A very fair point.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
“Your beef should be with the viewers who ELEVATE his status to more than it is.”
I think that clip – as correct as Stewart may be in this instance – illustrates that the elevated status his viewers have bestowed upon him has gone to his head. One doesn’t normally expect a guest on a comedy chat show to be chastised in that manner.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I don’t remember Jack Parr or any other “entertainer” dressing down another “entertainer” like this.
Are the people who get their economic news solely from Cramer, any dumber than the ones who get their political news solely from Stewart?
March 13th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Cramer, to paraphrase Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas “insulted him a little bit, a little bit, he got a little bit out of order himself” when he said Stewart was a “comedian” with a “variety show”. Cramer would have been better off pointing out how the Daily Show did a cut and paste job on him and his CNBC colleagues and leave it at that. Instead he goes on the show and bends over like a prison girlfriend to the smug little dirty mouthed drama queen and his Pavlovian audience of nose ringed dumbbells.
Interesting that CNBC became this weeks target of the Uber-Pro-Obama crowd. Rick “Previously Unknown” Santelli condemns the stimulus/mortgage “rescue” and the dogs get unleashed from the Press Secretary, Mrs. Doubtfire, to the Kos Kids to Cow College Keith Olbermann to Comedy Central. Who’s the next target – The NARN? The Patriot can only hope. AM1280 needs to figure out who is coordinating the left wing noise machine to distract the not very bright from how far below expectations this administration is.
Paging Flash. Paging Flash. There’s C-O-N-spiracy for you to sniff out. What’s that? It’s now old news that left wing groups do indeed coordinate their attack du jour via conference call every day at 8:45 AM? Centralized smear planning – that is the change we’ve been waiting for.
Sorry, Flash. Sounded like a job for you what with all of your experience exposing Evil Scaifenet.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
I wonder if Stewart goes home and tells his wife:
“You know, I’m a comic, not a woman. But here’s how you are doing it wrong”.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I don’t quite understand the aesthetic that considers Stewart a pretty boy; he’s well groomed, but he’s short, and has the kind of face that lends itself to mugging. Pseudo ivy league? – he’s pretty straight forward about being from ‘ Jersey.
Just beng fair, given that I seem to recall Cramer is a Harvard man. Doesn’t match the image I have of Ivy League, but that’s me…
I can appreciate not agreeing with his politics, but I think there are better things to call him on.
I thought Steward did a pretty good job; I just wish he hadn’t let Cramer get off so lightly over what he termed ‘shenanigans’. A euphemism that does not reflect the seriousness of the actions. That footage of Cramer showed him bragging about actions as a hedge manager that are unethical at best and illegal at worst, and would appear to involve far larger amounts of money than what put Martha Stewart in jail, and of comparable seriousness.
I hope the appropriate authorities investigate the behavior of Mr. Cramer who up to now I thought was just a tv buffoon. And if they find he’s another Stanford or mini-Madoff, I hope they throw HIS butt in jail too.