Jim Cramer vs. Jon Stewart. - The Final Battle:

Have you heard about the battle between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer & the rest of the folks at CNBC financial?
It started out good, got better in the middle, and peaked last night. It all started last year right after Bear Stearns went bankrupt. They collapsed on a Saturday. Later, Stewart played a video clip of CNBC "financial expert" Jim Cramer responding to a viewer's email. The viewer asked if they should pull their money out of Bear Stearns stock. Cramer went into a rant screaming "NO NO NO DO NOT TAKE YOUR MONEY OUT OF BEAR STEARNS" and other stuff like that. Stewart pointed out that the video was from an episode of Cramer's show the week before Bear Stearns actually collapsed. Here's a you tube video of Cramer's comments that Stewart used in his show back in 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3FVBKic5Ek

Jon Stewart fans have had fun laughing at the supposed "expert" from CNBC since that episode about one year ago. Stewart made it clear that Cramer's competence wasn't the most important point, but rather the fact that a lot of people listen to Cramer/CNBC, and take their financial advice from them, and that those people are now out a lot of money. That's all...

Apparently, word had began to spread over the last year about the Cramer/Bear Stearns video. It seems that a number of people were coming to the conclusion that Cramer wasn't qualified to comment on financial issues. His very career was possibly being brought into jeopardy over the video Stewart played, so Cramer went on a little promotional tour hoping to repair his image and basically save his career. NBC even had notables such as Joe Scarborough come to Cramer's defense. Scarborough didn't actually defend anything Cramer did or said, but he did attack Stewart in an attempt to "shoot the messenger" as so many prefer to do these days rather than actually addressing the issues.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220510&title=Basic-Cable-Personality-Clash-Skirmish-'09

The NBC family basically questioned Jon Stewart and Comedy Central's qualifications to report on the stock market so Stewart went on to question THEIR qualifications. ALL OF THEIRS. Apparently, CNBC has pissed Stewart off:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220252&title=cnbc-gives-financial-advice

At some point, Stewart seemingly heard from some lawyers regarding the Cramer issue. Stewart wound up apologizing on air for 'taking Cramer's words out of context', during that original broadcast in 2008. Stewart then clarified his position by running more tape of Cramer. He ran the video of Cramer saying on his show that he was comfortable with Bear Stearns at $69 per share. Three weeks later it dropped to $2. Stewart then played a video of Cramer where he clearly "urges everybody to buy Bear Stearns". That video was shot seven weeks before Stearns went bankrupt:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220288&title=In-Cramer-We-Trust



Stewart has now basically boiled down the entire issue to one question. Is CNBC providing journalistic oversight of Wall St. and corporate America?

Is CNBC reporting the crimes? Are they shining lights on the criminals? Or are they simply there to read press releases from the Wall St. Journal and act as apologists?

Stewart clearly believes that CNBC is NOT providing journalistic oversight. That concept is nothing new. We've seen plenty of journalists in America turn to lap dogs over the last, let's say eight years. They read White House press releases, instead of Wall St. Journal press releases.

The amazing thing is that Stewart made these points DIRECTLY to Cramer tonight when he appeared on Stewart's show!

After EVERYTHING Cramer still agreed to appear on the show. After Stewart basically eviscerated him and dealt an insurmountable death blow to his career, Cramer STILL agreed to appear on Stewart's show tonight.

If you haven't seen that episode, then I HIGHLY recommend that you watch it. It should be replayed at 10AM, 2PM, and 8PM on Friday. It's dramatic television at it's best. You might have expected Stewart to use kid gloves while Cramer was sitting right there on stage with him, but Stewart went on to again obliterate Cramer. He played video clip after video clip of Cramer basically indicting himself and the entire industry for failing to provide oversight.

It will be interesting to see what happens after this episode. At one point, Cramer was almost apoligizing for being a butt kisser and he basically said that maybe he could start supplying journalistic oversight of Wall St. Cramer basically looked like he was fighting for his career-life. Out of the ashes of his career, a journalist may suddenly appear like a Phoenix.

I've really never seen anybody get their butt kicked on TV like Cramer did tonight. A couple of times, I thought he was going to stand up and leave a humiliated and broken man, but he just hung in there. He took more punches than the French Olympic Boxing Team but he remained on his feet. He reminded me of Paul Newman's character in "Cool Hand Luke" when he got the crap kicked out of him in a prison yard fight. Even though he was nearly beaten to death, Newman just kept standing up over and over, only to get punched to the ground one more time. I really began to feel sorry for Cramer.

Sometimes human beings need to "bottom out" before they make the changes in their life that lead to good things. Perhaps Cramer has reached that point. Perhaps he has "seen the light" and will emerge a new person. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, for some very entertaining and MUST SEE TV, catch the reruns of the Jon Stewart show at 10AM, 2PM, and 8PM on Friday March 13th.

Here's a link to last night's interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B96vUHKN_I4

"Is CNBC providing journalistic oversight of Wall St. and corporate America?" The answer to this question is "NO!"