Erin Burnett: CNBC's Twit of the Day 3/10/09

Erin Burnett gets my vote for CNBC’s biggest twit today although her twittiness was on display on NBC’s Today Show rather than her usual gig on CNBC’s Street Signs. Burnett appeared with CNBC’s Jim Cramer who was struggling to defend himself against another beat down from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. In a column on MainStreet.com, Cramer had accused Stewart of taking his comments about Bear Stearns out of context. Cramer said that he had not been encouraging viewers to buy Bear Stearns stock one week before it collapsed as the clip played on The Daily Show implied; he had merely assured viewers with accounts at Bear Stearns that the money and securities in those accounts were safe. Stewart acknowledged the error, but the Daily Show’s researchers found that Cramer had recommended Bear Stearns stock at $69

Ever Cramer's loyal side kick, Burnett piped in with “Just to defend you Jim: Jim has to go out everyday and make these calls.”

Apparently, for Erin Burnett, the fact that Cramer gets paid to go out and shoot off his mouth about stocks everyday absolves him for any responsibility for pretending to know more than he really knows. I suppose that same logic would absolve all the mortgage brokers who sold subprime loans to unqualified home buyers. After all, they had to go out and recommend negative-amortization/interest-only/no-down-payment/teaser-rate loans to fools because that was what they were getting paid to do.

Burnett’s logic is actually quite consistent. Nobody should complain about China selling poisonous products because people are willing to pay for them. Nobody should complain about Cramer talking out of his ass because CNBC is willing to pay him to do it.