Jim Cramer must be a masochist

Perhaps you remember Jon Stewart opening up a can on CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer back in March. In case you don't, here's my post on the encounter.

"Encounter" is being kind to Cramer. It was a trainwreck. Evidently, Cramer mistakenly thought Stewart would be as "hard" on him as Cramer had been on the CEO's who he "always thought...were honest." How someone so smart could come across so incredibly stupid is a testament to the back-scratching, I-help-you-you-help-me-and-we-both-win lifestyle Mr. Cramer has lived in the last several years over at CNBC. It's exactly what Stewart had been complaining about leading up to the interview and if Cramer feels it was somehow unfair that Stewart called him out on it, he's not just being stupid, he's naive to the point of retardation.

Anyway...why bring bring this all back up? It's not fair to continue to pummel a fella once he's on the ground, curled up in a fetal position and begging for mercy (which, make no mistake, Cramer was. He ASKED Stewart what he wanted him to do! Please...not another, sir. I'll do whatever you want...)

Well...apparently, Jim Cramer has forgotten his ass-kicking. In answering reader's questions for TIME this week, Cramer had this to say about his visit to the Daily Show in March:

No one wants to suffer a beat-down. No one wants to be humiliated or
embarrassed. I was shocked at [host Jon Stewart's] behavior. I wish he knew
about my background, and I wish he knew about a lot of things that I had done,
because I think he would've thanked me instead of attacked me...I think the
attack on CNBC and the attacks on me were gravely misplaced. It was rather
remarkable in that it was so clear that his goal was to just destroy me. One day
he'll answer for it.

Uh...let me get this straight. You're upset because Stewart didn't defend you? Hey, dipshit...that was your job. Perhaps the reason you didn't offer up all this great stuff about your background or the things you had done, is because you know it was irrelevant to the fact that Stewart is absolutely right with his criticisms of you and your network. Maybe, just maybe...you realized that if you offered up such weak-ass counterpoints, they'd get slapped back in your face. Or maybe you were just too shellshocked that he flat-out caught your ass when you tried to make the case that you had tried to expose the "shennanigans" and he dropped that video of you pimping the very actions you says you "exposed."

Jim Cramer, you got your ass kicked. You deserved it. It's happened to the best of us. Let it go and try not pick a fight with a jujitsu master in the future.

The Daily Show goes Road House with Jon Stewart as Dalton & Jim Cramer as Brad Wesley

But it's not a f*cking game.

With those words, Jon Stewart unleashed the pent up anger we have all felt at those in the financial world who sh*t the bed the last 10 years and are now asking the country to change their silk sheets.

If you haven't been following the Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer/CNBC fued...you have missed one of the best cable confrontations in a long time.

It's been going on for about a week. Yesterday Cramer did an interview and it was aired last night. Here's a link to Benen's post about it, which includes links to the video on Comedy Central's site.

I totally agree with Benen. Yes the Daily Show is funny. But Stewart is no longer a comedian. He's a satirist. As a friend put it today at lunch, he's our Will Rogers. I urge you to watch the second part from the 6:00 minute mark on. I have one comment on that section: DAMN. He absolutely nails it and cuts to the bone.

And I -- when I watch that, I get, I can't tell you how angry that makes me.
Because what it says to me is that you all know. You all know what's going on.
You can draw a straight line from those shenanigans to the stuff that was being
pulled at Bear and at AIG and all this derivative market stuff that is this
weird Wall Street side bet... Listen, you knew what the banks were doing and yet
were touting it for months and months. The entire network was. And so now to
pretend this was some crazy once-in-a-lifetime tsunami that no one could have
seen coming is disingenuous at best and criminal at worst.

Both Stewart and Cramer had tried to lower expectations for this thing. Cramer, because there was no way he was not going to look like an idiot. He said this stuff, then got pissy when he got called on it and tried to BS his way out, then got called on his BS'ing. He knew he could not get away with anything.

As Alex Koppelman reported, Stewart told his audience on Wednesday that the interview, when it happened, was, "by all measure, bound to disappoint anyone that's been following." But Stewart had another reason. He was right and he knew it. To steal the line of our greatest satirist, Mr. Twain: He had the calm confidence of a christian with four aces.

Like a Gitmo detainee, Cramer was willing to say anything to make it stop, but his lame attempts to act like his comments were meant to "expose" the "shenanigans" (man...did he overuse that word or what? I thought I was watching Office Space) finally blew the fuse on Stewart.

These guys at these companies were on a Sherman's March through their companies
financed by our 401Ks... And they burned the fucking house down with our money
and walked away rich as hell and you guys knew that that was going on."

At points you almost felt sorry for Cramer, like he's just the guy who has to catch the beatin', you know. But then you realize, these guys are the enablers. That BS he was talking about in the video clips, about spreading rumors about Apple to manipulate the market, what do you think these jagoffs use to do that crap? CNBC and the rest of the financial "news" world.

It's a damn shame that it takes a show on Comedy Central to bring this out...

Can we make journalism a "closed shop"?

This morning, CNBC laughingstock Jim Cramer & the NY Times' Aaron Sorkin were on the set of Morning Joe and together with the cast of the show managed to show their complete ignorance of not only corporate America and labor, but also their ignorance of the very hands that feed them.

They were discussing how the world is going to end, due to the fact that union reps get carte blanche with the Obama Administration, when Cramer said: "If they get card check, I got to tell you...I think Wal-Mart, cut in half. I think most of the department stores will suffer mightily." This led Sorkin to utter the following: "Name a successful unionized company. Think. You're going to go to break before you come up with one. And that's the problem."

Let's deal with Cramer's comment first. Not since Cosmo Kramer went all David Duke on that comedy stage, has someone named Cramer had so little credibility than the host of Mad Money. Seriously. I'll clue you folks in on how smart this jackass is: He keeps whining about how hard John Stewart was on him. That's right, the guy who told people to leave their money in Bear, nothing to worry about there, only to watch it disappear. The same guy who went on the Daily Show and told Stewart how horrible the "shenanigans" Wall Street had done to lead us to this economic crisis were, this short selling and market manipulation, and explained he had tried to stop it. Only to then sit there like a turd on a log while Stewart cued up video of him explaining during a televised seminar just how to do those very same shenanigans and how good they felt. The guy who didn't think a CEO would lie to him about the solvency of his business. This is the same guy who is warning you that the sky is gonna fall over card checking. At least Cosmo Kramer was entertaining. This Cramer is simply an annoying gasbag.

Having dealt with Cramer, let's move on to the rest of these "journalists." First, not a single one was smart enough to point out to Sorkin that he was making this comment in front of a studio full of unionized NBC employees. Or, let's take it step further. As Media Matters points out:

GE is one of the world's largest companies; in 2006, its revenues were greater
than the gross domestic products of 80 percent of UN nations. The company made
more than $18 billion in 2008 -- again, billion with a b, and again, those are
profits, not revenue. All that despite (or, perhaps, because of) the fact that
13 different unions represent GE workers.

Come on, you say? How can I expect Joe, Mika and Mike to know such things? What's that...I should know that they are not really journalists? You're right...there a very few journalists anymore. Everyone is just a talking head now. I mean, a journalist would call someone out when they were completely full of shit. (For a good example of calling bullshit, click here.) I probably should simply be happy that Mika is so hot and that Joe provides plenty of unintentional comedy by stealing Sally Jesse's glasses and wearing them every now and then. Well...maybe I just thought they'd know a little bit about GE, because as Media Matters also points out:

GE owns NBC-Universal, which owns MSNBC, which pays Joe Scarborough a handsome salary (and the unionized workers who help get his show on the air considerably less.)

Does Joe Scarborough think NBC and GE are not "successful" companies?
Does Mika Brzezinski think the unionized workers she no doubt interacts with
every day are crippling her ability to do her job, or her employer's ability to
be successful?

Here's what Union leader James Hoffa had to say about this stupidity, in a release to TPM:

"Sorkin and the Morning Joe crew just showed their complete failure to
understand how unions contribute to the success of the American economy by
blindly assuming that unionized companies haven't been profitable in the last
year," said James Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters, in a statement to TPMDC.

Off the top of my head I can give you several Teamster-represented
companies who continue to thrive, despite the economic downturn, but there are
thousands more: UPS, Eight O'Clock Coffee, Coca-Cola Enterprises, PepsiCo,
Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. The Morning Joe team really should be
embarrassed for showing their lack of knowledge on the subject."

That would be James P. Hoffa, not James R. Hoffa. If Jimmy Hoffa had actually commented on this matter, that would be news!

Off the record, an irritated union organizer told TPM to "ask [Sorkin] if
he's received any packages from UPS in the past five years or so, or flown on
Southwestern Airlines during that time? (Media Matters also named UPS as successful unionized company which had $3 Billion--with a B, people--in profits last year--that's profits, people. Not revenue).

And is he aware that, in using those companies, like millions of
others, he was a customer of two of the most innovative and successful unionized
companies in the world? You could ask him how the American supermarket
industries survives, given that it's about 80% unionized? You could ask him how
the rest of the advanced capitalist world manages to compete with the U.S. given
that the unionization rate in every advanced capitalist country in the world is
greater, often far greater than ours---and that that is reflected in their
unionization density of their respective transnational corporations."

I'd like to point out something to those that attack unions. Yes...they have their problems. But...uh...good old corporate capitalism does not? There are millions of people across the world today that are enjoying higher wages, health care, retirement and other benefits that they never would have had it not been for unions. My pops worked for the Railroad and just like the song, worked it all the live long day, until he retired. And people like Sorkin and Cramer can knock unions all they want, but unions helped my dad support his kids and it has given him a retirement and healthcare.

So, Morning Joe crew, why don't you heed to words of the greatest Republican president of all-time, Abraham Lincoln:

But another class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation
between capital and labor as assumed; that there is no such thing as a free man
being fatally fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer; that both
these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them groundless. They hold
that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is
the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed;
that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed
without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior – greatly the superior
– of capital. They do not deny that there is, and probably always will be, a
relation between labor and capital. The error, as they hold, is in assuming that
the whole labor of the world exists within that relation.

With the words above, Lincoln was describing "free labor – the just, and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all, gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all."

And that's all I care to say about that.

Celebrating the 'Pine: Best of BTPC from '08 through '09

Earlier this week, we did a post pointing out that the BTPC had made it to our 2 year birthday. It's seems so long ago that we decided to start venting ourselves via a blog. Mostly it was stress relief, but it also provided us with an excuse to write a little for fun, which we had missed terribly since entering "the real world."

Several months ago, we started going through the archives and pulled some of our favorite posts. There is no rhyme or reason for the posts we selected. They just represent thoughts, ideas or happenings that, in looking back on the past two years, made some kind of impression on us.

For those of you that have taken time out of your day to occasionally come over and peruse our site, thank you. We hope everyone who does check us out, reads this site in the spirit it is intended. Foolish wisecracking, sarcasm and commentary that really does not take itself seriously. Neither should you.

Thanks again.

First post = http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/its-ablog.html

1-Vote election = http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/no-shame.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/florence-mayoral-candidates-debate.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/wukela-opens-up-can-on-rocky.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/frank-and-rick-this-is-exactly-why-you.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/getting-rid-of-gatekeeper.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/stay-classy-frank-willis.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/shhhhhear-that.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/wukela-to-be-sworn-in-next-monday.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/florence-your-new-mayor.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/man-of-year.html

NASA cribs Mr. Show: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/10/nasa-cribs-mr-show.html

Dirty women’s soccer player: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-if-you-went-to-fight.html

The Wire 100 quotes: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/11/wire-100-greatest-quotes-in-10-minutes.html

Sidehugs: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/11/wtf-is-sidehug.html

The Aughts: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/12/aughts-decade-of-tv.html

BTPC man of the year: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/12/btpcs-man-of-year-bill-mcguire.html

Todd Willingham case: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/did-texas-kill-innocent-man.html

SC we do crazy right: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/sc-we-do-crazy-right.html

Nothing sucks worse than GA: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/nothing-sucks-worse-than-state-of.html

Swayze dies: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/god-needed-cooler.html

Captain Lou dies: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/10/rip-captian-lou.html

Hader’s Carville impersonation: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/snl-hits-homerun.html

Big USC win: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/09/upset-ole-miss-10-south-carolina-16.html

Rev. Lowrey’s Innaugural benediction: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/01/can-i-get-amen.html

Innauguration: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/01/dream-realized.html

Best campaign commercial evah: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/waz-up-change.html

First Blair video: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/10/1980-in-reverse.html

Economy: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/who-are-these-people-and-who-killed.html

Reino hunts me down: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/who-am-i.html

HCR coming: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-health-care-reform-really-coming.html

Parnell rap: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/cp-laying-down-rhymes.html

Coal Plant: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/11/jobs-or-health-is-that-our-only-choice.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/progress-energy-wants-to-bring-this.html

80s Shawshank: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/if-shawshank-were-made-in-80s.html

Dolphins from worst to first: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/from-worst-to-first.html

Post on Exec Orders on torture and benefits of law: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/01/sullivan-on-eos-and-torture.html

Norm and Al, Kramer Crazy video: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/01/uhyou-talk-to-him-man-not-gonna.html

Steele in as chairman: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/01/riding-coattails.html

Obamas first address, live blog: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/02/live-blogging-presidents-address-to.html

Jon Stewart pwns Cramer: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/03/daily-show-goes-road-house-with-jon.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/05/jim-cramer-has-short-memory.html

Stewart as Conkrite (birther): http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-jon-stewart-new-walter-cronkite.html

Stewart on SC: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/08/stewart-and-daily-show-honor-sc.html

FLO CO GOP feuding: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-two-elephants-fight.html

Lame: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/03/early-to-finish-i-was-late-to-start.html

Rockafellas: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/03/rockafellas-rock-and-rolls-address-in.html

Top Gun gay: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/04/shes-lost-that-loving-feeling.html

We lost Captain Chaos: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/05/rip-captian-chaos.html

McCmaster. Busted. http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/05/heeeenrrrreeee-busted.html

CEB Day: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/05/happy-corbett-e-byrd-day.html

Carradine dead: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Revolution in Iran?: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/06/this-is-end.html

http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/06/wowits-getting-biblical-in-iran.html

Speeding tickets: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-speeding-tickets-are-bullsht.html

Slower keep right: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-of-common-courtesy-on-road.html

Madmen slogans: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/08/creat-your-own-slogan.html

McMahon, Michael and Farrah: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Media whoring for access: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/journalism-101-whoring-for-access.html

RIP McCourt: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/rip-frank-mccourt-have-pint-on-me.html

Live-blogging The Bachelorette: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/live-blogging-bachelorette-most.html

Most interesting man in the world: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/08/most-interesting-man-in-world.html

Teddy K: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/08/lion-of-senate-passes.html

Video

Farrell and Grohl, Leather and Lace: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/will-and-dave-little-leather-and-lace.html

Everday Normal Guy rap: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/according-to-jim-personality.html

DeadWood pancakes http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-miss-deadwood.html

Dead Wood Best of Al http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/continuing-my-deadwood-kick.html

The D – Squeezebox: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/d-squeezin-box.html

Kanye gay fish: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/04/check-out-kanyes-latest-hit.html

Taco Bell Folk Song Order: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/04/fast-food-folkn.html

Creepy Different Strokes: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-important-is-music.html

Bert and Ernie gangsta: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2008/12/bert-and-ernie-go-gangsta.html

Henson’s 11: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/04/muppets-eleven.html

Lip Dub Flagpole sitta: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-of-my-favorite-viral-vids.html

Ladies night: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/06/tuesday-night-is-ladies-night-for-rock.html

Wheelbarrow race: http://behindthepine.blogspot.com/2009/07/most-wicked-awesome-wheelbarrow-race.html

Is Jon Stewart the new Walter Cronkite?

According to a new Time magazine poll, Jon Stewart is the most trusted newsperson in America. I had Morning Joe on this morning while I was getting ready for work, and I heard Willie Geist and Courtney Hazlett "reporting" on this poll. I found their discussion of this telling for two reasons.

First, the Morning Joe team obviously considers this "entertainment" news, since they had it in the Geist-Hazlett section of the show, which is Morning Joe's little pop culture segment (Hazlett is proudly proclaimed on MSNBC's website as the "gossip girl.") Second, they pooh-poohed the results of the poll, by offering up the caveat, "we knew where this was going, since it was an online poll."


Those two reasons pretty much sum up what is wrong with the MSM. Geist and Hazlett's qualification that the poll is somehow inferior because it's online is just silly. Back in March of last year, the NY Times did a story on campaign coverage and how times had changed as to how people got their coverage.

In the most striking finding, half of respondents over the age of 50 and 39
percent of 30- to 49-year-olds reported watching local television news regularly
for campaign news, while only 25 percent of people under 30 said they did.

People aren't watching the nightly news anymore. And why would they? Ever since FOX News was born and the MSM started getting hit everyday with accusations of bias, those very same MSM outlets have been scared shitless of doing the one thing we expect "real" journalism to do: call bullshit. Instead, they bend themselves over backward so hard to give the appearance of being "balanced" that they manufacture balance by elevating complete nonsense and putting it against the truth, as if having two separate sides automatically means you are balanced. How about just reporting the truth and facts. Be "balanced" that way. But God help them if they ever called bullshit.

You know who does call bullshit? Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. You need go no further than watching Stewart eviscerate Jim "Mad Money" Cramer and his networks complicity in the financial crisis to see why an entire generation thinks he is more trustworthy than anyone else on tv. Because while Stewart may just be a comedian, trolling for laughs, he does not try to peddle bullshit to his viewers. You can't say the same for the network and cable news shows.

So I think the poll is big news. It shows just how far the "profession" of journalism has fallen. This was the Fourth Estate, the most important of them all according to Sir Edmond Burke. Now, instead of following the money to unearth the Watergate conspiracy, they are sending emails to the Luv Guv's staff that are so sycophantic and disgusting, you would expect to see Chris Hansen and his production team waiting on the media people if they ever were to arrive on Arsenal Hill.

Jon Stewart is legitimately the most trusted "newsperson" in the country, despite the fact that he hosts a "fake news" show. And Willie, you and Courtney ought to kiss the ring, as he's got way more juice than you or your little morning show.

Late ad: A perfect example of Stewart calling bullshit.

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