NBC Today Show segment

A day after the Dow fell from 8000 to 6800, Matt Lauer brought on Erin Burnett and Jim Cramer to play good cop/bad cop:

JC We're going lower.

EB Not a panic, a controlled, serial killer economy, an overall malaise broader than the market.

JC complained that the Treasury Secretary had been invisible and hoped that today he wasn't going to throw another anvil at the drowning man. No reason to own bank stocks, banks only represent fear.

EB Accept reality, change in living standards, people are no longer in denial. Three positives: WalMart (sheesh) doing better than most, footwear and apparel still shipping from China (sheesh again) as people are still buying basics ...

JC WalMart where folk shop when having a tough time. Show me Neiman Marcus. (Hate to tell you Jim, but the working poor have been hitting WalMart for decades.)

EB ... and stimulus package to create 5000 jobs in California this week..

ML asked why "fast actions by Obama" haven't restored confidence.

JC says radical agenda and budget caused a level of fear that changed everything,

ML asked if the Obama policies were not "shareholder-friendly" (what a straight man)

JC (recoiling double-take, all he needs are the heavy eyebrows) Shareholder-Friendly! greatest wealth destruction by a President he's ever seen, "stock market is the country right now," this is where people's wealth is, IRAs 401Ks, pensions.

EB tempers that by saying stock market is part of the country, but half the country owns stocks.

ML Depression?

JC Mild depression, SS, FDIC in place, no civil unrest, Obama must change radical agenda to something slower.

EB thinks we can go back to making more than our fathers. (What happened to accepting reality?)

As I saw it, Cramer is there to attack the proposed budget while Erin Burnett is there to temper Cramer's histrionics. Cramer is selling the line that Geithner and Obama are killing the country by not reassuring the market, while Burnett is reassuring consumers and advertisers by selling the idea that things will get better eventually.

Update: The same duo, with Sheila Bair, as reported in a Baltimore Sun blog :

Matthews, Cramer, MSNBC and CNBC -- spare me!

As if Matthews' duplicity and contempt for the audience's intelligence weren't enough, I then had to watch a "town hall meeting" on CNBC featuring Cramer and Erin Burnett, along with FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair. I will say this, Cramer was on his better behavior, but when Bair tried to actually explain some of the ins and outs of the administration's new plan to help homeowners in trouble, Cramer acted like he was zoning out on her details. He mock confessed to thinking of a college basketball game as she spoke -- at least, that is what I think he said amid all the crosstalk and bad audio.

I don't know why the administration sent Bair out to be a prop for Cramer, except that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is so bad on TV that they are auditioning replacements. The "town hall" crowd that looked like about 40 people from New Jersey sititng on folding chairs asked such questions as, "Should I keep my money in regional or national banks?" Bair said the FDIC does not make such recommendations. That's the level of discourse they had.

But this wasn't about getting information to citizens as much as it was showcasing Cramer -- as the final segment showed. The producers played a clip of Cramer flipping out. It was ID'd as his widely-known "rant heard round the world" in which he said among other things that Ben Bernanke, who now leads the Federal Reserve Board, is essentially out of it.

Why was the tape played? To get Bair to endorse and praise Cramer, as she did.

"You're a man of your convictions, and I respect it," she said to Cramer as the audience applauded. "What you were saying was right on."

Memo to Bair: I have often said that you have to use TV to govern, but you don't have to endorse bad behavior in an attempt to get better coverage on the business news channels.