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After reports that CNBC was furious with Jim Cramer for not defending the network against Jon Stewart when he was on The Daily Show one week ago, Jim Cramer finally made a non-CNBC appearance on NBC’s Today show where he played the role of the good company man.

Here is the video courtesy of ThinkProgress:

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Wow, what a change in Jim “The Company Man” Cramer. Did they take him in the back room at CNBC and have Rick Santelli work him over? Cramer in a minute and a half spoke the company line. He said that it wasn’t CNBC’s fault, and that other entities like the government and the bad companies were responsible. It is almost like Cramer was told what to say by his bosses at CNBC. It also isn’t a surprise that he would make these statements on sister network NBC.

CNBC did play a role in this mess, but it was a sideline role. Notice how Cramer went out of his way to defend the reporting of the network, which is a bit delusional if you actually watched CNBC during the last few years. They never asked a tough question of a CEO in an interview. Yes, they reported bad news, but CNBC has a habit of letting companies come on their network unchallenged and spin away concerns. CNBC is what it is. It is the business network. It is always going to have a pro-business slant.

Cramer and the NBC family are essentially contending that Stewart did not know what he was talking about. However, anyone who watched the interview could tell that The Daily Show host was well prepared. The bigger problem for both CNBC and Cramer is that their images have taken a serious hit. The aura of Jim Cramer the pit bull was destroyed. This spin attempt is a week too late. Cramer should have been everywhere last Friday morning instead of laying low. NBC blew the handling of this one, and no amount of Jim Cramer uttering the company line is going to fix all the damage.