Mesa Laugh out loud on this feud between Abelson & Barbara Bush imitator:
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BIZ PUNDITS BATTLE
IN DISSING MATCH
By JESSE ANGELO
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"Wall Street Week" host Louis Rukeyser and columnist Alan Abelson -- two of the most well-known financial commentators in the country -- are having a very ugly public spat.
In a clash of egos, the two have been trading barbs in the pages of Barron's, where Abelson's widely-read column leads off every edition.
The tiff started last week when Abelson called Rukeyser a "prattling panjandrum" and accused him of lacking "couth" for the manner in which he dumped bearish Warburg Dillon Read investment strategist Gail Dudack from his market-gauging Elves Index.
Abelson sarcastically called Rukeyser a "class act" because he informed Dudack of her dismissal via e-mail only minutes before going on air and "portentously and publicly chastising her for the mortal sin of bearishness."
Calling the 30-year-old show "pretty boring," Abelson said he rarely watched it and dissed the "interminable opening spiel."
To top it off, he castigated Rukeyser for "smirking at his own feeble jokes" and implied the longtime journalist was little more than a showbiz talking head.
Rukeyser responded in kind this week on Barron's letters page.
He wrote: "Eureka! In his characteristically misguided diatribe, Alan Abelson inadvertently supplies the answer to a mystery that has baffled savvy investors for years: How can a financial columnist be so unfailingly wrong about the stock market for more than a generation?"
The answer, Rukeyser said, was because Abelson never watches "Wall Street Week," and he asked Barron's readers to pitch in and buy Abelson a VCR to tape it.
"I will be happy to kick things off with a $10 contribution, as a public service to any Barron's readers who might still be foolish enough to take this perennial Wrong Way Corrigan seriously," Rukeyser wrote.
Abelson shot back that he already had a "state-of-the-art VCR, programmed to summarily reject anything that's pontifical, sophomoric and dull."
The columnist then suggested the $10 go towards a class on "civilized behavior" for Rukeyser.
Rukeyser did not return calls about the spat and Dudack declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Abelson said: "He feels he has said everything he wants to say so there's no further comment."
But one industry veteran put it all down to ego.
"They both see themselves as serious wordsmiths and I think that's what behind it," the insider said. >>
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