Nothing Unique About Cramer

A follow-up to my previous post about the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer interview on the Daily Show: Glenn Greenwald asserts that "there's nothing unique about Jim Cramer"...

Compare (Tim) Russert's self-defense to how and why he uncritically amplified Government lies ("I wish my phone had rung") to Cramer's pretense of victimization over the fact that CEOs lied to him and so there was nothing he could do but assume they were telling the truth ("I don't have subpoena power"). Stewart's primary criticism of Cramer applies with exactly equal force to the excuse offered by Tim "Wish My Phone Had Rung" Russert, who -- to this day -- is held up as the supposed Beacon of Tough Adversarial Journalism in America:

I'm under the assumption that you don't just take their word at face value. That you actually then go around and try to figure it out.

The point that can't be emphasized enough is that this isn't a matter of past history. Unlike Cramer -- who at least admitted fault last night and said he was "chastized" -- most establishment journalists won't acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the behavior of the press corps during the Bush years. The most they'll acknowledge is that it was confined to a couple of bad apples -- The Judy Miller Defense. But the Cramer-like journalistic behavior during that period that was so widespread and did so much damage is behavior that our press corps, to this day, believes is proper and justified.

(emphasis Greenwald's)

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