Damn, I want to watch. I don’t get cable any more, so I have to wait until Hulu puts it up.
John Stewart with the win. I thought he was going to softball this thing.
That was not pretty.
I will say that I think Stewart lectured a little too much and could have given Cramer more time for rebuttal than he did. He was a little Bill O’Reilly-ish. Cramer really didn’t have that much, though. His whole defense was basically that the CEO’s lied to him. Well duh, that’s what CEO’s do.
Whoa. Stewart just crucified Cramer, who died for Wall St.'s sins.
That doesn’t sound like J.C.
Cramer’s entire rebuttal each time was him saying, in various forms, “Hey, should I have done better? Sure, I should. I’m sorry I didn’t. But it wasn’t my fault.”
Over and over. He came across as someone just trying to dodge any blame until the storm passes.
Wow. Cramer pretty much just sat there and took his (well, CNBC’s really) medicine. I honestly wouldn’t have expected that.
That was one of the more interesting 21 minutes of TV I’ve seen recently.
I’m a little more tolerant, I guess, but that’s probably because I didn’t have a financial stake; but I lost all respect for the man’s judgement whan he upgraded them AGAIN to “DON’T BUY.”
Daily Show server seems to be overloaded, I guess this has gotten a lot of following.
That was pathetic.
Watching a grown man suck up and kowtow to a turkey like Jon Stewart, as if Stewart were the Pope and could give some kind of absolution…
Cripes, after sucking up to a freaking COMEDIAN, Cramer doesn’t deserve any respect.
I was really proud of Jon for articulating what the role of real journalists should be, and pointing out to Cramer what everyone else at CNBC (and ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc.) should know: they’re supposed to be working for us, the public, and not merely acting as stenographers for powerful interests, whether in the public or private sectors.
I give Jon lots of credit for saying from the start that this wasn’t a fight between him and Cramer, but was a beef he had will all of CNBC. I give Cramer credit for coming on the show and taking it like a man. He had few good answers for Jon’s tough questions, and he seemed really chastened by the experience. It would be nice to think that Jon’s lecture could help improve CNBC’s coverage. He certainly had an effect on Crossfire.
But I suspect that Cramer will be back to his old BS in fairly short order.
I take exception to II Gyan II’s characterization of Stewart and TDS. If, as Mr. Dooley famously said, the role of the journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, Jon is a far better journalist than most reporters and commentators at the above-mentioned networks.
Pathetic indeed, but (seemed to me) more for the fact that Cramer appeared to have come to a rather painful and depressing personal realization of a responsibility that he, and the network he works for, failed to carry out.
I’d be happy to hear where you found any particular thing Stewart said was unfair or flat-out wrong. I haven’t followed every nuance of the market meltdown, but I didn’t notice any really incorrect statements.
It took THAT for you to lose respect for Cramer? That IS pathetic.
Holy shit, Stewart was smokin’! :eek:
Quick poll: the audience was not as responsive as I think the interview deserved. Was the audience uninterested/confused by the topic or the way it was handled, or was it mesmerized by Stewart’s evisceration of Cramer? I say mesmerized. 
Howcum real journalists can’t do stuff like that? 
:mad:
Comedy is serious. He does political humor. He is not squirting seltzer. He is pointing out what is happening in the world and wraps it in comedy. He does the news better than the networks.
Well, they responded to some applause lines but overall they were quiet. I wonder if Stewart had intended for the interview to go as seriously as it did. He obviously had video cued up and ready to go but that was almost like watching a more hostile version of PBS.
Here is an article on MSNBC. They are in agreement. Cramer got served.
My favorite line, and I’m paraphrasing as I don’t have a transcript, was “We’re both snake oil salesman. Of course this show is up front about the snake oil, the problem is you’re selling it as a health tonic.” That’s TDS v. Real News in a nutshell.
All in all I thought Stewart was extremely courteous- he could have gone in for the kill but settled for some cuts.
I suspect Stewart wanted the interview to be serious. He’s generally non-confrontational with elected politicians (even the Congressman Bonilla interview linked to earlier wasn’t nasty at all, IMO), probably because he would get even fewer of them than he already does, but he has shown no qualms whatsoever about going after pundits and commentators. He seems to genuinely believe that people like that are hurting the country and wants to shame them into acting responsibly.
Full credit to Cramer for going through with it though. There really wasn’t any effective defense he could have made for CNBC and it seemed like he was aware of that. Of course he didn’t admit any responsibility either, but that’s hardly surprising. His strategy was apparently to say as little as possible, which was probably the safest choice…
I sort of hate to be this cynical, but any business has to answer to its customers; and for TV networks, that ain’t us. Their customers are the advertisers. We, the audience, are the product that they sell to them.