Cramer Bashes Obama and Liberal Media While Praising Fox News

March 9th, 2009 10:41 AM

The good folks in the Obama administration and in the media took on the wrong foe with Jim Cramer, for the outspoken CNBC personality struck back at his ill-informed and economically-challenged critics Monday in a fashion those that have watched him for years have grown to expect.

In his self-titled "Cramer Takes on the White House, Frank Rich and Jon Stewart," the "Mad Money" host: referred to the current White House as "exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies"; accurately exposed the New York Times' Frank Rich and comedian Jon Stewart for cherry-picking snippets of his on-air recommendations in order to discredit him, and; complimented the civility of folks on the right declaring, "I always love anyone from Fox on the team because they are fierce in their defense with much less gratuitous slamming."

How delicious. Here are some of the highlights:

President Obama's team, unlike Bush's team, demonstrates a thinness of skin that shocks me. When I somewhat obviously and empirically judged that the populist Obama administration is exacerbating the crisis with its budget and policies, as evidenced by the incredible decline in the averages since his inauguration, I was met immediately with condescension and ridicule rather than constructive debate or even just benign dismissal. I said to myself, "What the heck? Are they really that blind to the Great Wealth Destruction they are causing with their decisions to demonize the bankers, raise taxes for the wealthy, advocate draconian cap-and-trade policies and upend the health care system? Do they really believe that only the rich own stocks? What do they think we have our retirement accounts in, CDs? Where did they think that the money saved for college went, our mattresses? Do they think the great middle class banks at the First National Bank of Sealy and only the wealthiest traffic in the Standard & Poor's 500?" [...]

As someone who just wants to help people preserve capital and help it appreciate when the time comes when it is not too risky to do so, I am appalled at the attack and badly want to engage in the issues and tone down the rhetoric. What's the point? The country's in crisis. We need to stop the lurching nationalization of banks, something that's come about because the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have not been able to regain control of the banking system from the short-sellers who seek to wipe out the common equity and "win" by placing all banks in receivership. [...]

Take Frank Rich and Jon Stewart. Both seize on the urban legend that I recommended Bear Stearns the week before it collapsed, even though I was saying that I thought it could be worthless as soon as the following week. I did tell an emailer that his deposit in his account at Bear Stearns was safe, but through a clever sound bite, Stewart, and subsequently Rich -- neither of whom have bothered to listen to the context of the pulled quote -- pass off the notion of account safety as an out-and-out buy recommendation. The absurdity astounds me. [...]

We need to declare a war on unemployment and solve it before we let it get out of hand. We need to stop house-price depreciation. Neither the pork-laden stimulus plan nor the confusing mortgage proposal put forward by Obama will defeat either enemy. When Obama trounces both unemployment and house-price depreciation, he will have the power to enact anything he wants. But all the initiatives he wants to rush, like tax hikes, changes in health care, tinkering with the mortgage deduction -- good grief, right now in the midst of the worst housing downturn ever -- and the tough cap-and-trade rules, will derail any chance we have of turning this economy around. Instead, they put the Second Great Depression smack on the nation's table. The markets thought he could stop it; hence the giant relief rally when he was elected. But in fewer than 50 days of his ascendancy, the markets' hopes were totally dashed and the averages are now forecasting the worst decline since the Great Depression. As someone who listens to what the averages are screaming, I think they are accurately predicting the future. [...]

(Oh, and memo to Bill Maher: Stop insulting my faux great-great-uncle Vlad Lenin. I am using him to dramatize the point of a failed nationalization and confiscation of the banks at the hands of the people. It is funny how the right is certainly very civil as my old friends and new allies as of last week, Fred Barnes and Sean Hannity, don't hold my left wing social view against me when they talk about my criticism of the president! I always love anyone from Fox on the team because they are fierce in their defense with much less gratuitous slamming.)

Nicely done, Jim. I couldn't have said it any better.