But it's not a f*cking game.
With those words, Jon Stewart unleashed the pent up anger we have all felt at those in the financial world who sh*t the bed the last 10 years and are now asking the country to change their silk sheets.
If you haven't been following the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer/CNBC fued...you have missed one of the best cable confrontations in a long time.
It's been going on for about a week. Yesterday Cramer did an interview and it was aired last night. Here's a link to Benen's post about it, which includes links to the video on Comedy Central's site.
I totally agree with Benen. Yes the Daily Show is funny. But Stewart is no longer a comedian. He's a satirist. As a friend put it today at lunch, he's our Will Rogers. I urge you to watch the second part from the 6:00 minute mark on. I have one comment on that section: DAMN. He absolutely nails it and cuts to the bone.
And I -- when I watch that, I get, I can't tell you how angry that makes me.
Because what it says to me is that you all know. You all know what's going on.
You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being
pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this
weird Wall Street side bet... Listen, you knew what the banks were doing and yet
were touting it for months and months. The entire network was. And so now to
pretend this was some crazy once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that no one could have
seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.
Both Stewart and Cramer had tried to lower expectations for this thing. Cramer, because there was no way he was not going to look like an idiot. He said this stuff, then got pissy when he got called on it and tried to BS his way out, then got called on his BS'ing. He knew he could not get away with anything.
As Alex Koppelman reported, Stewart told his audience on Wednesday that the interview, when it happened, was, "by all measure, bound to disappoint anyone that's been following." But Stewart had another reason. He was right and he knew it. To steal the line of our greatest satirist, Mr. Twain: He had the calm confidence of a christian with four aces.
Like a Gitmo detainee, Cramer was willing to say anything to make it stop, but his lame attempts to act like his comments were meant to "expose" the "shenanigans" (man...did he overuse that word or what? I thought I was watching Office Space) finally blew the fuse on Stewart.
These guys at these companies were on a Sherman's March through their companies
financed by our 401Ks... And they burned the fucking house down with our money
and walked away rich as hell and you guys knew that that was going on."
At points you almost felt sorry for Cramer, like he's just the guy who has to catch the beatin', you know. But then you realize, these guys are the enablers. That BS he was talking about in the video clips, about spreading rumors about Apple to manipulate the market, what do you think these jagoffs use to do that crap? CNBC and the rest of the financial "news" world.
It's a damn shame that it takes a show on Comedy Central to bring this out...
2 comments:
That interview was insane! JS has some balls.
While this was very interesting I was really hoping to read bout Roadhouse. Wade Garrett was the baddest cooler in the business.
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