The New York Times today notes that Santelli's appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was yanked, with a CNBC flak telling the Times, “It was time to move on to the next big story.”

As I suggested in my column this week, real damage was done to the cabler by Santelli's on-air rant, his prancing around right-wing radio where he concocted stories, and by CNBC's decision to relentlessly hype Santelli's performance. That a biz reporter would uncork such a partisan outburst on air, crossing all normal bounds of journalism, and then be celebrated, revealed a real deficiency in leadership at CNBC.

It's nice to see execs there have belatedly caught on to the error of their ways.

UPDATE: Santelli denies the recent Playboy allegation, suggesting his rant was not spontaneous and that he was in cahoots with anti-Obama biz forces.