Jim Cramer's bad publicity

It turns out there is such a thing as bad publicity, said Robert Bianco in USA Today. CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer learned the hard way by feuding with “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart over CNBC’s judgment in covering the economic meltdown. The spat ended with Cramer's “almost embarrassingly contrite groveling” on Stewart’s comedy show, which could have been avoided if Cramer had known when to shut up. (watch Stewart’s introduction, part 1 of the interview, and Cramer’s response)

Cramer may have lost the debate with Jon Stewart, said Alessandra Stanley in The New York Times, but “Cramer may yet have the last laugh.” Yes, Cramer was visibly taken aback by Stewart's “prosecutorial tone.” But mostly Cramer "sat back and milked every last drop from a tempest-in-a-cable-box that NBC and its sister channels have been fanning" because, after all, people are tuning in.

Whatever happens next, said John Rash in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune, watching Stewart excoriate Cramer for his days manipulating the market as a hedge-fund manager, and for being an accomplice in the financial crisis, "was a rare, albeit brief, cultural catharsis for a nation reeling from the rapidity of the economy's meltdown."

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