I must admit I've been enjoying the spat between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer, partly because it's funny and partly because Stewart is doing something that doesn't happen nearly enough in the media today. He's pointing out when so-called experts were dead wrong. There seems to be no penalty — no recognition, even — when what happens is precisely the opposite of what was predicted. Erroneous punditry is shrugged off, not just by those who make the bad calls but by their peers and even by the viewing public. I believe this is called The William Kristol Syndrome.
Some web comments are making a big deal about Cramer's support (or lack thereof, in some ways) to Barack Obama, saying that this is "The Left's" way of punishing him for straying a bit from the reservation. I don't think everything in this country has to be viewed through the prism of being for or against Obama. Certainly, folks on either side of that divide are quite capable of saying foolish things. Mr. Stewart and his crew may be Liberal on most issues but those like Joe Scarborough who think he doesn't ridicule Democrats and the new White House occupant haven't been watching the show. (I think some of them are foolishly expecting or hoping to encourage that Obama in his first fifty days be mocked as much as Bush was in his last fifty days.)
Cramer is scheduled to appear tomorrow night on The Daily Show. I imagine he'll cop to giving out some advice but insist that in later broadcasts, which Stewart did not cite, he course-corrected some or all of that. That may be so but it will affirm Stewart's point, which is that if one listens to CNBC, one hears a certain amount of financial advice which later proves to be inoperative. I hope he doesn't take to arguing, as he has in some recent responses, that Jon Stewart is not a financial expert. We already all know that. Stewart was just trying to point out that some of the folks on TV who are sold as financial experts aren't, either.