Bob Rossney: March 2009 Archives
There's a reason commentators are using words like "bloodbath" and "slaughter." Though it reminded me more of one of those nightmares where you find yourself in your math class, on the day of the final, and you realize that you've been going to the wrong class all semester: the exam is covered with equations that you can barely recognize, you don't know where to begin, and for the next three hours all you can do is fail.
Cramer walked onto that show ready to defend himself against what Stewart had already accused him of. He was utterly unprepared for what he got. Which is strange, because what he got was really just an elaboration of what Stewart said in the original piece about CNBC and Rick Santelli: this network seems to be in league with the traders against the investors, it's uncritical to the point of appearing collusive, and that if the network actually has a purpose beyond entertainment (and, seemingly, telling the fish how to line up for the sharks), it has manifestly failed.
And Cramer had nothing to say to any of that. It was weird. It's like he's never in his life prepared for a midterm by looking at a practice test. The only thing he was ready to talk about was that sure, his predictions could have been better. It's like he focused on the one single thing in the original piece that made him look silly, and paid not the slightest bit of attention to anything else.
I actually started to feel bad for him at one point. Not bad bad, mind you - the clips from his 2006 interview that Stewart kept playing kept that under control. But he was in zugzwang very early on. Whatever ammunition he might have had to use in disagreeing with Stewart's criticisms of CNBC he left at home. His knowledge and experience and common sense, which he did bring with him, gave him nothing he could use to counter Stewart - largely because Stewart's fundamentally right and he knew it.
But if he couldn't disagree with Stewart, agreeing with him was even less of an option. Agreeing with Stewart would destroy him.
So he babbled ineffectively. You would expect that someone with his persona would be irritated if he got interrupted in mid-sentence by a long speech. But every time that happened to him he looked unperturbed, maybe even relieved. He was safest when he wasn't talking.
And so he let Stewart talk. And what Stewart let loose with was, seriously, the clearest and simplest articulation of what has happened to us, of who did what, and to whom, and how it was done, that I've seen anywhere.
Cramer walked onto that show ready to defend himself against what Stewart had already accused him of. He was utterly unprepared for what he got. Which is strange, because what he got was really just an elaboration of what Stewart said in the original piece about CNBC and Rick Santelli: this network seems to be in league with the traders against the investors, it's uncritical to the point of appearing collusive, and that if the network actually has a purpose beyond entertainment (and, seemingly, telling the fish how to line up for the sharks), it has manifestly failed.
And Cramer had nothing to say to any of that. It was weird. It's like he's never in his life prepared for a midterm by looking at a practice test. The only thing he was ready to talk about was that sure, his predictions could have been better. It's like he focused on the one single thing in the original piece that made him look silly, and paid not the slightest bit of attention to anything else.
I actually started to feel bad for him at one point. Not bad bad, mind you - the clips from his 2006 interview that Stewart kept playing kept that under control. But he was in zugzwang very early on. Whatever ammunition he might have had to use in disagreeing with Stewart's criticisms of CNBC he left at home. His knowledge and experience and common sense, which he did bring with him, gave him nothing he could use to counter Stewart - largely because Stewart's fundamentally right and he knew it.
But if he couldn't disagree with Stewart, agreeing with him was even less of an option. Agreeing with Stewart would destroy him.
So he babbled ineffectively. You would expect that someone with his persona would be irritated if he got interrupted in mid-sentence by a long speech. But every time that happened to him he looked unperturbed, maybe even relieved. He was safest when he wasn't talking.
And so he let Stewart talk. And what Stewart let loose with was, seriously, the clearest and simplest articulation of what has happened to us, of who did what, and to whom, and how it was done, that I've seen anywhere.
