This is some wild, that-ain't-right-man stuff: CNBC's Jim Cramer and New York Attorney General have been building their respective cults of personality on the backs of the good faith of CNBC viewers:
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has built his reputation battling corporate titans, but at least one Wall Street guru - CNBC's James Cramer - is reaping the benefits of their cozy relationship, e-mails obtained by the Daily News show.
The never-before-published missives, procured by the state Republican Party under Freedom of Information laws, illustrate a friendship between Wall Street's top cop and one of its most high-profile commentators, who was once Spitzer's personal money manager.
More troubling, Republicans charge, the e-mails point to several instances of mutual - and clearly coordinated - praise for each other in the press, making the Democratic gubernatorial hopeful look like a PR man for Cramer.
I think "look like a PR man" is being generous. More like "is a PR man." If Jim Cramer's so smart, how could he engage in this kind of criminally stupid assualt-and-battery on his own credibility? And more important, how could you ever really trust anything he said on CNBC again? The details of the log-rolling, back-scratching, influence-trading--pick your poison--between Cramer and Spitzer are stunning:
In one example, an aide to Cramer writes that Spitzer had volunteered to say nice things about Cramer for an upcoming New York Times profile on the boisterous TV host, a very public fan of Spitzer's.
"Eliot wants to return the favor that you always do for him," the aide wrote to Cramer last January, a reference to nice things Cramer had said about Spitzer in the past. "Any themes that you want them to work or employ?"
"Sure," replied Cramer in a talking-points e-mail forwarded to top Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp. "[I am] trying to keep Wall Street honest. . . . I take no fees from investment banking and am 100% vested in trying to make money for viewers."
When The Times article appeared 18 days later, Spitzer delivered a positive assessment of Cramer as a straight shooter.
Oh, the irony...if you watch Cramer and you want to de-chump and otherwise un-sucker yourself, the New York Dialy News has the actual emails, and you know what they say about the truth setting you free...in this case, free from CNBC. Read on...
