A long, long time ago, the ancients took many, many shells of a human being, stacked them inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, and animated their creation with ancient magicks. Their creation twitched at first, and then let out a despairing cry that lasted for a thousand sundowns. But then it passed, and their creation - this shambling, idiotic collection of human shells - began to happily bumble and shriek and leap about the room with glee. The ancients were satisfied, and so they named their beast "Jim Cramer" and naturally, he soon became part of the financial media. And, lo, all was well, until Cramer was wrong about everything ever, drawing the attention and ire of Comedy Central's The Daily Show.
This thing called Cramer, having recently experienced a woodshed beatdown from that show's host, Jon Stewart, found himself on the Morning Joe today, where he was asked to reflect on the experience. "Blame," quoth the golem Cramer, "is not very constructive."
He would say something like that, wouldn't he? Yes, time to set aside "blame." But there's still plenty of time for denial. The criticism he faced on The Daily Show was "misguided" because it "blamed the media...somehow CNBC was to blame." "If you look at the players who were involved...and the litany of things that went wrong, the media's very, very low" on the list. And yet, The Daily Show is a show that, first and foremost, criticizes the media, so that's what happened.
This is the lengthiest and highest profile self-defense Cramer has offered up since going on The Daily Show. Despite the fact that I've got no reason to believe it's anything other than a coincidence, SURELY, I'm going to note one more instance of Jon Stewart getting criticized when the show is on a break, and is unable to respond.
Anyway, as we've seen, Cramer is now a little more willing to defend Geithner, which is unsurprising. The Jim Cramer from those videos Stewart showed, so eager to explain how to game the system and manipulate the markets? That guy's been waiting his whole life for the sort of "public/private partnership" that's been developed to bid up the value of toxic assets while ensuring a minimal haircut if everything goes wrong. I do appreciate the fact that Cramer talks up the Chinese for "their brilliance as both economists and financial players." God knows if they become our overlords, Cramer will have to answer to a different sort of "media criticism."
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