The Guardian says year-end bonuses will be record-breaking at Goldman; Cramer's critique is that you don't know what Goldman's bonuses will be until the end of the year, when they actually are determined. In other words, Jim Cramer is attacking a journalist for speculating about the future value of Goldman's bonuses. Replace "Goldman's bonuses" with "Bear Sterns' stock" and wait for your mind to be blown.

"They just make it up," Cramer said. "I get fired if I make stuff up." No you do not, Jim. You don't get fired. Trust us, we've been paying close attention to this.

"One of the great things about our political system is that you can lie in print," he continued. He meant that ironically, because he's hip. He actually means that it's not great that you can lie in print. Except he also means that it actually really is great after all, since that's how he makes his money. Here's Cramer on how to make money shorting Apple stock by spreading lies about the iPhone, to reporters, who will lie in print because Jim Cramer asked them to:

Apple, it's very important to spread the rumor that both Verizon and AT&T have decided don't like the phone, and that it's not going to be ready for MacWorld. And this is a very easy one to do because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it's credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn't talk.

According to a piece in Tuesday's New York Times, text messaging is responsible for a host of modern teenage problems, from anxiety to sleep deprivation to failing grades, but perhaps worst of all—-debilitating hand injuries brought about by excessive texting!

Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)

Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But he added,

"Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs."

Wait, aren't our opposable thumbs what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom? In that case, could the text messaging/thumb destruction epidemic currently sweeping the nation eventually lead to the complete breakdown of all human society? How long before we just start masturbating in public and slinging our feces all over the place like crazed mongrels?! Is excessive text messaging how Jim Cramer's slow decent into madness got started?!

Texting May Be Taking a Toll on Teenagers [New York Times]

Gasparino was all set to do the panel on "Buyouts, Bailouts and Burnouts," which was sponsored by the Center for Communication, until all the participants got an e-mail this week alerting them that the discussion would include "the recent brouhaha between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer."

At that point, according to a tipster, Gasparino started hemming and hawing about whether he could make it after all. In the end, he was a no-show.

Is Gasparino a fraidy-cat who didn't want to reignite the whole Stewart mess by wading into it? He hasn't returned a phone call and e-mail we put in to find out. But he might be avoiding panels after his appearance at a seminar earlier this month where he said "Jon Stewart is full of shit" and "I'm tougher than Jon Stewart." The CNBC bosses probably put the kibosh on that sort of talk, lest Stewart start in on the network again.

UPDATE: Gasparino returned our call to say he ditched the panel because "Kudlow begged me to be on his show. I had forgotten that I even said yes to this thing until last week." And he says the idea of talking about Stewart had nothing to do with it: "That had zero to do with it. I'll be honest—was I crazy about talking about him? No. But am I going to shy away from him? No." OK we believe you Charlie. But you should have called to cancel! Manners.

I mean can you believe the nerve of this fuckin' guy, coming on CNBC and saying amateurs should follow a proven successful passive investment strategy and shouldn't try to time the market according to the rantings of a man whose stock picks have a losing record? The nerve of this fuckin' guy. Shove your "index funds" up your tight ass!

Cramer's rant here is only 5% less shouty than that.
[Clusterstock]

Page Six "has learned" — such credible language from a gossip sheet — that such pressure was applied. But CNBC disputes any political overtones to the event, which it said was a "to thank CNBC for a job well done." Uh, really? A job well done?

In any case, someone at NBC clearly has an axe to grind. Six's source insists GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker (pictured) want the network in the tank, for the socialist in chief:

There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much... The whole meeting was really kind of creepy.

This account is definitely disconcerting, if only because there are far better reasons to call CNBC on the carpet: failing to warn investors about the pending financial meltdown, actively mocking experts with enough foresight to do so, swallowing so many CEO lies whole, and just generally being a part of the dysfunctional, broken Wall Street system rather than a check on it.

Rick Santelli's cheap Fox News schtick is the least of the network's many problems.

[Page Six]

Cramer's self-pitying tirade to Ohio State University's The Lantern reads like a tour through the stages of grief as he mourns the man he used to be before Stewart pantsed him in front of the world, and it bears quoting at length:

1. Anger: Jon Stewart doesn't fight fair. He used Facts and Logic because he hates me.

"It was a complete and utter ambush," Cramer said in an interview with The Lantern. "He told my staff that it was going to be fun, convivial, no clips, but [it] doesn't matter, he's a comedian, he can do whatever he wants."

[snip]

"Was it a fair fight? No, it wasn't even a fight. I came on with the idea of taking a high road approach and discussing the issues, obviously [Stewart] came on strictly to try to humiliate me," Cramer said. "It was brutal. Was he stand-up? Absolutely not. Did he comport himself as a gentleman? Hardly. It was a deposition; he wants to be a prosecutor."

"He had an animus toward me. At the conclusion of the interview, not on the mic, he said, 'I picked the wrong guy, I'm sorry,' but that's not gonna get out there," Cramer said. "He just said it to me as just a throwaway. His goal was just to humiliate and destroy me and probably get me fired, and last I looked, I still have a show."

2. Delusions: Jon Stewart doesn't know the real me, who is not an asshole and is always right. All the people who watched the whole thing could see that.

"I think that people who watch ["Mad Money"] know that the show that I do is very different from the show that the critics say it is," he said. "I think that Jon Stewart has never seen my show, ever."

Cramer said that while "you can pick any single clip to make people fib," Stewart could have also shown clips of some of Cramer's correct predictions.

"Those are the calls that I care about, but they're not gonna mention those calls - that would make me look good. It's nobody's interest to make me look good," he said.

[snip]

"It was a 20 minute interview [ed.—it was a 12 minute interview, but math is hard!], he picked the worst eight minutes to make me look as horrible as possible. It's his show, he can do whatever he wants. If he comes on my show, it'll be a fair discussion, but he's not gonna come on my show, because he's all about his [ratings] numbers," he said.

3. Acceptance: But let me be clear, I am one huge asshole. I know this because I am still rich.

"I am a highly controversial figure [on "Mad Money"]. I was not a controversial figure when it came to making money. And I can tell that guy, when he's made his first 100 million in the market, I will respect his judgment about the market."

Extra points for being willing to admit that his correct predictions are the only ones he cares about. Except we knew that already.

This is just the latest stop on Cramer's hapless tour to recover from the evisceration. Previously he has made a big joke of it, called Stewart "naive and misleading" for attacking the media, and said he was just taking the "high road."

It's the iconic battle of our economic era: The guy who always says everything is getting worse, and the guy who tells you to buy everything every time the market ticks up, until you lose all your money. A regular WWIII of the markets! Or maybe it's just two jerks who can't shut up? You decide!

"Cramer is a buffoon," said Roubini, a New York University economics professor often called Dr. Doom. "He was one of those who called six times in a row for this bear market rally to be a bull market rally and he got it wrong. And after all this mess and Jon Stewart he should just shut up because he has no shame."...
"He's not a credible analyst. Every time it was a bear market rally he said it was the beginning of a bull and he got it wrong," Roubini said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Rather accurate! Cramer wrote a blog post saying "Roubini is 'intoxicated' with his own 'prescience and vision' and said Roubini should realize that things are better since the stock market bottom in March." Unfortunately, Jim Cramer is always wrong about everything.

Round one goes to Roubini. Round two: Charity naked boxing match in the fameball vulva loft of Doom? Think about it, guys. [AP]

Meredith Vieira brought up the Stewart interview at the end of a segment on the economy, asking Cramer if Stewart didn't have a point about CNBC's cheerleading coverage of the bubble. "I think it was a naive and misleading thing to attack the media," Cramer replied. "It's just wrongheaded. There are people who bear so much more responsibility."

So why didn't he say that to Stewart? "That was an attempt, as it was throughout the interview, to take a high road, which I was brought up to think was a good thing to do. Sometimes high roads aren't well greeted in the media."

Such a polite boy. Cramer was raised well by his mamma, who also taught him how to make money by feeding bullshit to reporters and how to use his platform on CNBC to attack the CEOs of companies whose stock he has shorted.

Apparently CNBC is still going with the "it's better to be talked about than respected" strategy when it comes to Cramer, because they won't let this thing die. NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker defended Cramer yesterday, engendering a response from Viacom CEO Philippe Daumann. And now comes Cramer to basically say that he was just humoring Stewart. Like Tucker Carlson, he just can't let it go.

This morning, Zucker stuck up for Cramer, dismissing Stewart's critique as scapegoating and saying that "just because someone who mocks authority says something doesn't make it so."

Oh no he didn't! Daumann refused to let the insult stand, taking the stage to defend Stewart: "Jon Stewart is a great person and he's very smart and has a connection with the zeitgeist which makes him successful. It got so much attention because Jon Stewart was one of the few people on air that spoke to what people are thinking out there. He did a great job and we're proud to have to have him as part of our family."

Please, please let them settle this with fists. Zucker is rumored to keep a roll of quarters on hand at all times in case he needs to throw down.

He started off on Mad Money all contrite, just like he was on The Daily Show, saying he had "to say something about what happened yesterday." See, he wanted to show his own clip from "Stewart vs. Cramer." We won't spoil his lame surprise, but suffice it to say, he then promised "Now back to business as usual" with one of his testosterone laughs and fratboy snickers from his crew. With the stock market up this week he wants you to buy! buy! buy! Because this is all a game for Cramer. And he thinks as long you keep playing, he keeps winning.

TV Newser reports that MSNBC producers were told not to talk about Cramer appearance on the Daily Show last night.

The contretemps has been cable wallpaper all week; the NBC bosses' decision to tamp down and enter damage control mode with a sure-to-leak order dictating editorial coverage indicates that they are taking the PR downside of this debacle seriously after foolishly offering up Cramer to Stewart earlier this week. The gag order surely came from NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker, pictured with Cramer.

Calls to several CNBCers this morning indicated that Cramer has "the full backing" of CNBC and NBC Universal execs, and that his role at CNBC is safe. But some are hopeful that the backlash against Cramer will serve as a wake-up call to CNBC president Mark Hoffman, who pushed the eight-screaming-heads-in-a-box gimmickry that seized the network when he took over in 2005. And while it's unlikely that CNBC would dump Cramer over a chat-show appearance, the more he becomes both the public face of the network and the target of populist outrage, the grimmer CNBC's fortunes become as it heads into a very down year.

Meanwhile, Former CNBC reporter Mike Hegedus writes on his Huffington Post blog: "If you invest your money based solely on what Jim Cramer tells you on television you deserve to lose it."

Hegedus spent a decade at CNBC; he just left in January. Another, current CNBC reporter expressed precisely the same sentiment to me in an interview today: That people looking for free stock tips on TV get what they pay for.

SO STOP LISTENING TO THE THINGS THEY SAY, PLEASE.

Cramer avoided any career-ending gaffes on the Daily Show last night — like say, "when a performing monkey pundit does it that means that it is not illegal!" — but the extended drubbing and his squishy apologetic demeanor is a reminder that his 30-year-long career — as a trader, as a dot-com entrepreneur, and now as a screaming cable personality — has been little more than a running series of scandals and contretemps, rife with evidence that the TV personality has long made a habit of using his media profile for personal enrichment. The Stewart dust-up is far from the first time Cramer has run up against allegations of ethical misconduct. Here's the tangled history:

1. Stock-Picking at SmartMoney
In 1995, Cramer mentioned four stocks as good buys in his SmartMoney column, mentioning that he had a stake in one of them. In fact, his firm Cramer & Co. owned shares in all four, including 10 percent stakes in two of them. All four stocks shot up in value after the column ran. The SEC launched an informal investigation, and Dow Jones, which owned SmartMoney, announced a new ethics policy to prevent columnists from writing about securities they own. The magazine eventually took the blame for leaving out the disclosure. Two years later, Cramer told CNN that the episode "turned my life upside down... I now mention to everybody in the press because it could happen again; I don't want it to... It was a horrible incident. I live with it every day." Lesson learned!

2. Shorting WavePhone
In 1998, while co-hosting Squawk Box, Cramer said out loud on television that, prior to interviewing the CEO of a company called WavePhone that morning, he had shorted 25,000 shares of the company because he thought it was overvalued. Later in the same show, he went after the CEO, and WavePhone's stock dropped 38 percent, making Cramer slightly richer. He later claimed that it had been "a terrible choice of words" to say, "I called my stock-loan department and said, 'Listen, I want to short 25,000 WavePhore because I think this thing is a big speculative bubble." In fact, he said, he was just curious if anyone else was shorting the company. CNBC suspended him and the SEC investigated, but found no wrongdoing.

3. Trading With the Enemy
In 2002, Nicholas Maier, who worked as a Cramer & Co. trader for five years, published a tell-all detailing Cramer's manipulation of his pals in the financial media for fast profit: Acquire exclusive intelligence on a stock, take a position on that stock, and then leak the intel to CNBC. "Jim's strategy was to put in an order to buy a stock...and then dial Maria [Bartiromo]," Maier wrote. "As soon as she announced the news on television, the stock would often jump.... We weren't just using the news, but making it. No sooner would Maria be thanking us for the help than we'd be getting a payback—a quick hit thanks to our friends at CNBC."

4. SEC Subpoeanas
In 2006, both Cramer and TheStreet.com were served with subpoenas by the SEC in an investigation into collusion between stock analysts and short-sellers. According to, um, TheStreet.com, the SEC was looking into allegations that "Gradient Analytics, an Arizona stock-research firm, published bearish research reports at the behest of a group of short-sellers, including Rocker Partners, a minority owner of TheStreet.com." The subpoenas were never enforced after the SEC backed down, but such a scheme might involve Rocker Partners ordering up some negative intel on a stock, shorting that stock, and then leaking the negative intel to their friends over at TheStreet.com, profiting nicely when the news breaks.

5. Short-Selling
Oddly enough, Cramer outlined just such a scheme in the 2006 interview with TheStreet.com cited frequently by Stewart last night. If his hedge fund was short on a stock (he used Research in Motion as an example) and needed it to go down, he said, "it's really important to get the Pisani's of the world"—that would be CNBC's Bob Pisani—"talking about it as if there's something wrong with RIM. Then you call the bozo at the Journal who's a reporter on Research in Motion and you would feed that Palm's got a killer that it's going to give away." It works with Apple, too: "Apple, it's very important to spread the rumor that both Verizon and AT&T have decided don't like the phone, and that it's not going to be ready for MacWorld. And this is a very easy one to do because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it's credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn't talk."

Sounds familiar!

At left, enjoy a quick burst of a meek, deferential Cramer. Enjoy it now, because who knows when the shouting head will appear this humble again.

The CNBC host has been engaged in a heated back and forth with Stewart this past week over whether he's done too much Wall Street cheerleading on his Mad Money show.

The spat followed a broader attack Stewart launched against CNBC after the financial network's Rick Santelli backed out of a scheduled appearance, reportedly because he's a big chicken.

Cramer's relative bravery didn't buy him softer treatment from Stewart, judging by what AP is reporting:

"I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a f—king game," Stewart told Cramer... He alleged CNBC was ultimately in bed with the businesses it covered - that regular people's stocks and 401Ks were "capitalizing on your adventure."

Cramer's recent line of attack was that Stewart, a comedian, lacks the sophisticated understanding of financial markets Cramer employs when telling callers to "buy buy buy," blowing a clown whistle or giving a grossly misleading softball interview to his old boss.

Cramer backed off from the tough talk on Martha Stewart's show today. And it looks he's in full retreat mode tonight, based on the Associated Press' unattributed report (which probably came either via an audience member or Comedy Central briefing). AP:

[Stewart] accused the financial news network of willfully ignoring corporate dishonesty.

For his part, Cramer disagreed with Stewart on a few points, but mostly agreed that he could have done a better job foreseeing the economic collapse. Cramer called himself a "fan of the show" and said his network was "fair game" to Stewart's criticism.

Which is why Cramer won't end up basically ruined like Carlson: Carlson fought Stewart hard at every turn. Cramer's been very, very wrong often enough that he can do the contrition bit quite convincingly.

(Pic: Associated Press)

(UPDATE: Added additional info from a longer AP article.)

"I'm a little nervous," Cramer said to Martha, doing his best scared-little-boy impression. "Is he going to kill me?"

"He's quick as lightning," Stewart said icily.

"But I'm slow as molasses," Cramer replied.

The gambit is transparent: Fearing a rout, Cramer is trying to garner sympathy and make Stewart's critique seem like a cruel attack on an overmatched opponent. Cramer has apparently finally realized that, owing largely to his own missteps, he is facing an existential challenge to his position as a financial guru. And the jig may well be up tonight.

It didn't have to be this way, and wouldn't have been if Cramer could have kept his ego in check. Stewart's initial volley—a devastating clip montage of CNBC's fawning, upbeat coverage of institutions that eventually proved bankrupt or criminal—was aimed at the network, and featured jabs at Maria Bartiromo, Carl Quintanilla, and others. But Cramer took it as a personal affront and blasted back in a Mainstreet.com column, leaning into the punch and inviting Stewart's more devastating rejoinder. Moreover, Cramer went on the Today Show and MSNBC earlier this week and tried to spin the flap as a carping comedian versus brave prognosticator, failing to understand that the he was in a fight not with Stewart, but with the historical record of Jim Cramer saying a variety of extremely wrong things on television. His defense amounted to, "But I have to make predictions! It's my job!" Which rather substantially missed Stewart's point.

So what happens tonight? It could basically go two ways: Tucker Carlson or Bill Kristol. Stewart takes pride in inviting ideological opponents, even buffoons, on his show and treating them with respect, exemplified by his friendly if pointed chat with Kristol shortly before the election. But he can be vicious and cruel when his opponent is representing the interests not of a political point of view, but the lazy and entitled media establishment that the Daily Show exists to skewer. His artfully executed "stop hurting America" screed on Crossfire in 2004 was personally uncomfortable, effectively ended Tucker Carlson's television career, and actually ended Crossfire's run on CNN.

If he goes Carlson on Cramer, it will be ugly. All Cramer ever had going for him was a gonzo personality, the absence of a mental filter, and the trust of his audience that he knew what he was talking about. Without that trust he's just a comedian.

Jim Cramer at Buttermilk Channel, corner of Court St. and Huntington St. in Carroll Gardens... around 9 pm. Maybe he was loading up on sustenance before tomorrow's thrashing, courtesy of Jon Stewart. He got caught by an adoring fan, a busty Brooklyn brunette, at the bar while on his way out. His wife may or may not have looked at said fan threateningly. He actually seemed pretty low-key, and I think he was wearing a Jets jacket over his suit.

The smackdown between CNBC and Jon Stewart started when CNBC's Rick Santelli abruptly backed out of a scheduled Daily Show appearance, but it was the financial network's idea to keep it going. After watching Stewart flay CNBC for the second night in a row on Monday—and offer an open invitation to "Jim Cramer, Maria Bartiromo, anyone from the cast of Five Bald Guys Who Make Noise About Money, [or] CNBC's famed Money Monkey"—network executives called The Daily Show and offered up Cramer to defend his, and the network's, relevance and integrity.

Though most observers assumed that last week's decision to pull Santelli from the show was made by timid CNBC execs after his "tea party" rant ran into some blowback from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, a knowledgable party claims it was Santelli himself who got cold feet and pulled out.

The appearance will likely be ratings gold for The Daily Show, given the attention the contretemps has received, though it's unclear what the upside is for Cramer and CNBC—Cramer hasn't exactly done a bang-up job of defending himself in the friendly confines of the Today Show and MSNBC's Morning Joe. Perhaps the network hopes to put a cap on the "CNBC was wrong" meme and stop mischievous tape archivists from pulling embarrassing clips of CNBC's pre-bust days. Not likely.

Cramer, the relentlessly incorrect host of CNBC's Mad Money, discussed his ongoing war of words with Stewart this morning on sister NBC shows Today (on the flagship network) and Morning Joe (on MSNBC). Even he seemed to think the feud was being inflated beyond all reason. "I think you ought to lighten up," he told Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough as Scarborough ranted against the Daily Show.

Stewart apparently feels likewise. So while he made fun of some of Cramer's statements from the NBC morning-show tour on the Daily Show tonight, as promised, he also made light of the clash itself. As it turned out, those were the show's funniest moments (see latter half of the clip above).

Why is it so much fun to watch these two entertainers fight? Cramer's been taken down a peg before, after all. There are plenty of serious examinations of the state of the economy out there. But that's all so depressing, especially when you realize there will be no Jon Stewart-supplied punchline at the end.