“…the feud began when Stewart’s Comedy Central series, The Daily Show, answered Santelli’s rant against the bad judgment shown by homeowners with a video reel mocking CNBC’s own bad judgment in covering the economic meltdown. Cramer complained that the reel took some of his comments out of context, which led Stewart to do an even funnier, nastier clip reel aimed solely at him.”
(emphasis mine)
That line, about Cramer complaining that his comments were taken out of context, was in an article Cramer wrote that was dealing with the larger issue of Obama and the budget & stimulus (and all the grief Cramer was getting for his criticism of it). All of this happened before the Martha Stewart and Morning Joe appearances.
My opinion is that Stewart opted escalate the issue with Cramer due to Cramer’s critical analysis of Obama – not because he genuinely wanted to get into the nuances of financial journalism.
That is how Stewart operates. He rarely ever debates people on the merits of anything. He instead goes after them ad hominem – finding any instance of contradiction they have ever had or a personal mistake they made in their life, and then magnifies it in Daily Show style.
I’m not defending Jim Cramer here. He’s a big boy and will sleep in the bed he made. I’m just pointing out that in all the reporting and blog posting that has been going on, what’s being left out are what I consider to be Stewart’s true motivations. Some may disagree with me on it. But after observing the guy and The Daily Show for many years, it was obvious to me what really irked him about Cramer.
