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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009, 05:00 am
Stewart vs. Cramer

I'm not a fan of humiliation humor. Watching somebody slip and fall does nothing for me. The old Fish Out Of Water thing that so many TV shows and movies rely on makes me squirm. Maybe it's because I've been in that sort of situation so many times in my life, it just hits too close to home. In any case, when someone is humiliated in the name of comedy, I tend to feel kinda bad for the poor shlub.

So, I'm feelin' kinda bad for CNBC's Jim Cramer.

Y'see, there's been this kerfuffle on TV the past week. It actually started with a guy named Rick Santelli, a reporter for CNBC, who got his 15 minutes about a week and a half ago in what many blogs termed "the rant of the year", in which he basically excoriated homeowners who might be foreclosed upon as "losers" and put forth the notion of "tea parties" as a means of protesting any help for said homeowners.

This didn't go over well with a lot of people. (Santelli even got dressed down by Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, twisted it that into saying the White House had threatened his kids, and then retracted that claim.)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart invited Santelli on, and he agreed... and then cancelled. Which just meant that Jon had some fun with him and with CNBC.

In said fun time above, Jim Cramer got nailed. Well, he wrote an article in which he said he was taken out of context.

So Stewart took him in context.

The next morning, Cramer went on The Today Show and Morning Joe to complain. Stewart fired back.

Which leads us to last night, when Jim Cramer went on The Daily Show for an extended interview with Jon Stewart. (Even the promo for it is great.) The whole thing, uncensored (a couple of F-bombs, so be careful if you're watching at work), is in three parts, below. (The links are to The Daily Kos, so that I wouldn't have to embed all three videos, which seems to be the only option besides just going to the Daily Show main page.)So, I'm feelin' kinda bad for Jim Cramer.

But only kinda.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 09:40 am (UTC)
[info]morpheus0013

I usually don't care for this sort of thing. But my dislike for Jim Cramer is so severe that I honestly can't feel bad for him. I'm not sure I'm as amused as a lot of people are by this, but fuck that guy.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 09:49 am (UTC)
[info]filkertom

Well, in that case, here's a last little lump of ironic joy: Rick Santelli taking down Jim Cramer. (Not the best edited video of all time, but, hey.)
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 11:13 am (UTC)
[info]berimon

It's very very clear from the 3part interview that Stewart is a much better TV man, and that Cramer can't keep up with him.

I agree completely with Stewarts position, but the most telling part of watching all of that, was that Stewarts position was respectful. Something that doesn't come across in any of the other clips from CNBC, where they spout their opinions as fact. (The hilarious F-bombs notwithstanding.)

It's very telling that the call for discourse, research, and truth-in-reporting comes from a "comedy show".
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 02:05 pm (UTC)
[info]technoshaman

It's very telling that the call for discourse, research, and truth-in-reporting comes from a "comedy show".

This has been that way for centuries. Good, incisive, biting (quasi-pun discovered and allowed to stand) social commentary has been the purview of the comedian for ... well, Voltaire is the earliest solid example I can think of, but goodness knows he didn't invent it.

There was a time when I liked Cramer... then I lost track of him, and when I came back to him I realized this guy is way too much like a used car salesman.... and that there's a reason for that - what he's selling is bogus, jumped up, and will fall apart on you the moment you drive it off the lot.

Only you can't fix a stock.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 04:28 pm (UTC)
[info]hugh57

This has been that way for centuries. Good, incisive, biting (quasi-pun discovered and allowed to stand) social commentary has been the purview of the comedian for ... well, Voltaire is the earliest solid example I can think of, but goodness knows he didn't invent it.


I think this actually goes back to the Court Jester, who was usually the only member of Court able to tell the King the truth, because he told it in an amusing fashion.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 06:38 pm (UTC)
[info]jrtom

Aristophanes comes to mind as perhaps the seminal example--or at least one of the earliest for which we have records--of a humorist whose work at least often focused on politics and social commentary. (Lysistrata, for example.)
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 08:11 pm (UTC)
[info]fredhuggins

Last night, something I've suspected for years got confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt: beneath all the Photoshop wackiness, silly voices, dumb sound effects and braying audiences, Jon Stewart IS the Edward R. Murrow of our time. Whether he likes it or not.

I wouldn't be surprised if college debate teams studied that interview for decades to come.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 12:15 pm (UTC)
[info]shsilver

I'm of the opinion that Jon Stewart is horrible at interviews. His most entertaining ones are when he is interviewing his friends. But occasionally, he can ask the hard hitting questions. He's done it with Mike Huckabee, and last night he did it with Cramer. Like you, I felt a little sorry for Cramer, who looked as if he had been told, "You're going to appear on Stewart's show, you're going to be apologetic, you're going to take whatever he dishes out, and you're not going to lose your temper." Unfortunately, while Stewart was asking the questions, he rarely gave Cramer the chance to answer them. And what Cramer didn't seem to get was that Stewart wasn't just talking about him, or even about CNBC, but was talking about all journalists who have been, for too long, willing to accept what they are told without looking into what is really happening.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 12:16 pm (UTC)
[info]shsilver

I'm also a little surprised that throughout this entire week, I haven't heard a single reference to Stewart's show-ending appearance on "Crossfire" in 2004, in which he made many of the same points.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 12:39 pm (UTC)
[info]filkertom

Whew. Gotta say, I disagree. Part of what I see as Stewart's great strength in interviewing is that he tends to know his subject very well, and asks pretty straightforward questions that are tough to weasel out of. And he does it so politely -- heck, he even helped Cramer save a little face at the end. But there are some people -- O'Reilly, McCain -- I wish he was tougher on.

And, a number of people in the blogosphere have mentioned that very Crossfire appearance, including just this morning over at dKos.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 02:43 pm (UTC)
[info]zellion

They were talking all about the Crossfire debacle on Jezebel.com, people wondering if Cramer was going to apologize and make out ok on the show or if this was basically going to be the end of his career.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 01:45 pm (UTC)
[info]docwebster

Jim Cramer is tin plated little weasel who yells too much. F**k him. As for Santelli, my response to him would involve a locked room, him secured to a chair with barbed wire and me with a baseball bat and a great big smile. Loser this, asshole.

Not that my opinion is pretty heavilly slanted on THAT particular issue for blindingly obvious reasons or anything. Ahem.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 02:44 pm (UTC)
[info]zellion

Stick him in a locked room with Jack Bauer and a pencil!
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Sat, Mar. 14th, 2009 01:12 am (UTC)
[info]jss1113

The Society for the Prevention of Abuse of Pencils (SPAP) will be protesting outside your house next Thursday.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 01:48 pm (UTC)
[info]dlobok

This definitely came across, to me, as CNBC offering Cramer up as the sacrificial lamb. That being said, he definitely deserved some of it - like his desperate attempt to misrepresent that little video clip and what it was really about.

Like you, I can't stand watching people fumble and fail. I had to pause the T.V. a few times and draw so I didn't get too uncomfortable. But everything that was said definitely needed to be said.

The fact of the matter is, though, CNBC is going to probably be on good behavior for a little bit and then it's back to the usual shitpile.

And by "little bit," I mean around 10am ET.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 02:46 pm (UTC)
[info]zellion

I'm not a fan of humiliation humor. Watching somebody slip and fall does nothing for me. The old Fish Out Of Water thing that so many TV shows and movies rely on makes me squirm.

This. It sure makes it difficult to have a conversation about any TV show or movie with my mundane coworkers, I'll tell you. They're going on and on about how some movie is the funniest thing in the world and I'm trying not to sound like a prude telling them I haven't seen it because I wouldn't find it funny.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 03:21 pm (UTC)
[info]admnaismith


You know who I'm feelin' kinda bad for? People who tuned in to Jim Cramer and followed his financial advice and lost their retirement money.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 10:18 pm (UTC)
[info]madrona

Oh snap!
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 04:09 pm (UTC)
[info]wizwom

Well, Cramer seems to be a lying sack of fresh manure.

Stewart had him dead to rights on being an "in man" in the games being played. Hell, calling him a "man" assumes he has cajones, his worm-like performance was that of a man with solid crepe paper cajones - at best.

Now, do I expect to see Cramer actually start in on the investigative reporting he agreed to? Hah! Cramer will continue to shmooze CEOs, take them at face value, air their little clips of interviews, and not cast a single stone - because the CNBC position is that soft-ball interviews get them more interviews and the more interviews with CEOs, the more credibility CNBC has, and thus the more viewership.

And we all know it's about putting ads in front of eyes.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 08:00 pm (UTC)
[info]teddywolf

I do not like Jim Cramer's show and don't have the best opinion of the man off the show. At the same time, he did apologize for his mistakes quite publicly and didn't try and peddle horseshit to Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart, for his part, made it plain that he did not find Jim Cramer totally objectionable and was not directing his ire directly at Cramer most of the time.

While I consider Cramer to be an obnoxious host on his own show, and ofttimes more of a salesman for stocks than a proper watchdog, he does admit mistakes and is willing to improve. In this he is a huge cut above Rushbo, who is an even more hypocritical and obnoxious jerk than when he started on the radio.

I do think he went on The Daily Show figuring his job is on the line. If he ever shows proper watchdog-work on his own show I suspect it will get a major ratings bump, even with the shouting.
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Fri, Mar. 13th, 2009 11:01 pm (UTC)
[info]vixyish

Wow. His network really did push him off the back of the sled, didn't they?
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Sat, Mar. 14th, 2009 01:48 am (UTC)
[info]judifilksign

I wonder to myself whether Cramer would do a better job with a bigger staff to fact check. He admits he's more entertainment than watchdog, and that he was paid to make off the cuff picks.

I thought he was, while uncomfortable, honest about his mistakes (in part because Stewart was so well-prepared) and, I think, surprised at the amount of fact checking there was in the "entertainment" show from Comedy Central.

Stewart, in calling on MSNBC to be watchdogs and drivers of public outrage to keep liars in line is asking them to do what he does with laughs, but for serious news because they have access, personal access that could do so much more.

I clicked through all the links, and found my time well-spent. Thank you, Tom.
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Sat, Mar. 14th, 2009 01:14 pm (UTC)
[info]old_fortissimo

Just to be pedantic, Stewart was calling out CNBC, not MSNBC...yet.

I wonder what he feels about the FOX money channel...?
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Mon, Mar. 16th, 2009 01:25 am (UTC)
[info]klangley56

I watch Stewart (and Colbert) regularly, and I followed this saga with much amusement. I don't feel sorry for Kramer. Stewart did not single him out, he was taking the entire CNBC network to task, but apparently Kramer's ego couldn't handle that, and by his subsequent actions he put *himself* in the cross-hairs.

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