Jeff Zucker and the CNBC Straw Man

The reason CNBC remains at the center of controversy today, and the reason it's taking on water in a way that other prominent business news outlets aren't in 2009, is that its recent behavior has become so much more shameless and egregious than everybody else's.

With its constant stream of on-air misinformation (and borderline demagoguery) about the administration's bailout plans -- from Jim Cramer's intimations that President Obama has communist leanings to Rick Santelli's ignorant, faux-populist right-wing rant -- CNBC has been setting a new standard in irresponsibility this year, an outlandish standard the rest of the business media has mostly avoided.

CNBC's editorial staff seemed to have awakened from its eight-year slumber just in time to realize that it was Democrats who wrecked the economy. In terms of newsroom standards, it's like Fox News run amok over at CNBC.

And that, Jeff Zucker, is the real problem.

Read the full Media Matters column here .