Cramer on BloggingStocks: The future for BofA is with Moynihan

With Lewis out, we have the Balkan Babel, with the old gunslingers from North Carolina arguing with the Bank of America people from out west and the Fleet people from the northeast.

I understand the jockeying from behind the scenes is incredible with a character assassination campaign against Moynihan that seems determined to sway the 30,000-feet people on the board, the "Mr. Cleans" that were put on to get the regulators off their backs but don't know banking.

What's the case against Moynihan? Holy cow, he went to law school! Oh, no. He's Chuck Prince. He's the clown prince! Bank of America's going to go down the Citigroup (NYSE: C) (Cramer's Take) plunge pool path. The bank will be destroyed as surely as Prince destroyed Citigroup.

OK, let's dispel this nonsense. First, Sandy Weill built and set Citigroup down a reckless path through a series of reckless deals and no attention to detail. There were no governors at Citigroup. Then Eliot Spitzer decided, because of some renegades in the research department, notably Jack Grubman, that Weill had to go. At that juncture, behind the scenes, Spitzer had Citigroup in his clutches.

Spitzer publicly made it clear that he did not want to pull an Arthur Andersen on either firm -- too many jobs lost -- but he had the ability to indict and the boards of both firms knew that. At Citigroup that meant that Weill had to go. Spitzer wasn't like any other regulator. He pretty much told Citigroup that Prince was acceptable to him because he was a lawyer. For all intents and purposes Spitzer picked Prince, just like he picked Michael Cherkasky to run Marsh & McLennan (NYSE: MMC) (Cramer's Take) after he booted Jeffrey Greenberg.

Both Cherkasky and Prince were meant to be interim. Both held on. Both did almost irreparable harm to their franchises. Both really had no genuine qualifications for the job other than Spitzer liked them. Capricious? So what.

So Prince was a lawyer who pleased Spitzer. Moynihan, on the other hand, is a lawyer who became a banker, not unlike Bob Rubin and Lloyd Blankfein. I know Rubin's fallen in disrepute because of his time at Citigroup, but the Rubin I knew ran banking brilliantly at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) (Cramer's Take). Blankfein? Did people forget he went to Harvard Law? Maybe they think he's just a pure business guy? Did anyone at Goldman say wait, Blankfein could be Chuck Prince?

Prince, for all I know, is a great guy. But he was terrible at his job and it was over his head. That wasn't because he was a lawyer. It was because he knew nothing about banking.

Moynihan has done a remarkable job at the one part of Bank of America's business that everyone applauds: the company's consumer banking division. He's the best at it. The firm's the second best at consumer banking after Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) (Cramer's Take). It has a shot at being better because Merrill Lynch is such a great platform for wealth management and Countrywide's such a great mortgage platform.

Now, what's the case for Curl, the man who the Charlotte and Bank of America factions are backing and making a strong case to the relatively persuadable Walter Massey, who has emerged not as Tito but as a bit of a Bank of America University president as befitting his previous role as a college president? He's the man who can untangle the mess of Ken Lewis, the seemingly intractable and risky problems facing the bank now because of the horrible assets within Countrywide, old Bank of America and, of course, Merrill Lynch. It is thought that Curl understands the depth of the problems and the lame consumer banker, and Moynihan doesn't.

To which I ask, if he understood how risky they are, then why would he, as chief risk officer, approve them in the first place? Curl, who should be called the chief high risk officer, is precisely the man who was in the position to say to Lewis, "Look, there is too much subprime risk at Countrywide, and look, there is too much collateralized mortgage debt risk at Merrill."

When people I know in the business hear Curl's name, their hair curls. Curl's the guy who provided the faulty ammunition for the greatest risk-taker of all time, who took a fantastic franchise and repeatedly went to the casino with it.

If you want to look backward, you pick Curl, with the idea that he can sort out the mess he created. If you want to look forward, look forward to creating the best consumer bank in the country, with more than a 20% share of the consumer in this country, then go with Moynihan. Here's the real irony. Let's say Judge Jed Rakoff, the man who triggered Lewis' departure with his toss out of the Securities and Exchange Commission wrist slapping deal against Lewis, is the Spitzer in this drama. Who do you think he would be appeased by -- the man who put BofA's shareholders at risk, the ammo carrier to Lewis, or Moynihan from the "clean" side of the bank who happens to be a LAWYER!

If I were the board looking at what's most palatable to the judge who is holding up everything, I would go with Moynihan who has the added advantage of actually being able to carry out the vision -- not faulty at all -- of what Lewis wanted to accomplish. Can he be Tito?

No, he doesn't have to be. Because the factions go away with the economy getting better and the assets returning to health.

Curl and Moynihan. Past and future. My money's on the future. Has been the whole way.

Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer was long Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.