CNBC’s jackass of the day for Thursday, March 12 is on air editor Charlie Gasparino. You might think it was Jim Cramer who found that being satirically skewered by The Daily Show was a walk in the park compared to the ass-whipping he got under Jon Stewart’s questioning, but I give Cramer credit for going on the show and taking it like a man (unlike Rick Santelli). Gasparino, on the other hand, clearly displayed the partisan hackery that makes CNBC such a cesspool.
In a segment titled “Seeking Solutions,” Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Bush’s Labor Secretary Carlos Gutierrez are supposedly on the show to talk about creating jobs. For years Gutierrez appeared regularly on CNBC to shill for Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship and in yesterday’s appearance he mouthed trite conservative pieties about letting the private sector handle things without any challenge from the commentators. On the other hand, Dennis Kneale asked Reich a rather pointless question about whether Obama should be reaching out to Wall Street for advice on handling the economy. This was followed by Gasparino ranting about the fact that Obama wants to allow tax rates to return to the level that they were under the Clinton administration and rudely talking over Reich when he tries to address the question, even going so far as to imply that Reich is lying about the prosperity that the country enjoyed in the 1990’s.
This is not to suggest that there is anything illegitimate about questioning whether Clinton deserves as much credit for his management of the economy as his fans would give him. Nevertheless, it is incontrovertible fact that job creation in the 1990’s was superior to that under Bush. It is also incontrovertible fact that the recession that Bush inherited was relatively mild. It is inexcusable that Clinton’s Labor Secretary can’t make his case for Obama’s economic policies without being shouted down by a jackass like Gasparino.
In a segment titled “Seeking Solutions,” Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Bush’s Labor Secretary Carlos Gutierrez are supposedly on the show to talk about creating jobs. For years Gutierrez appeared regularly on CNBC to shill for Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship and in yesterday’s appearance he mouthed trite conservative pieties about letting the private sector handle things without any challenge from the commentators. On the other hand, Dennis Kneale asked Reich a rather pointless question about whether Obama should be reaching out to Wall Street for advice on handling the economy. This was followed by Gasparino ranting about the fact that Obama wants to allow tax rates to return to the level that they were under the Clinton administration and rudely talking over Reich when he tries to address the question, even going so far as to imply that Reich is lying about the prosperity that the country enjoyed in the 1990’s.
This is not to suggest that there is anything illegitimate about questioning whether Clinton deserves as much credit for his management of the economy as his fans would give him. Nevertheless, it is incontrovertible fact that job creation in the 1990’s was superior to that under Bush. It is also incontrovertible fact that the recession that Bush inherited was relatively mild. It is inexcusable that Clinton’s Labor Secretary can’t make his case for Obama’s economic policies without being shouted down by a jackass like Gasparino.
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