Cramer's LIttle Big Horn

Wall Street had its first good rally in months this week, and the only thing that's really and truly different about this week and all the others is that Jon Stewart had Wall Street guru Jim Cramer on the ropes.

The S&P 500 jumped nearly 11 percent. How else can we explain it than somebody finally spoke truth to the jackasses who helped fuck this economy up?

And they did help. This economy's been in trouble for 30 years. GW's policies accelerated the crash. Plenty of people saw it, watched it for three decades. But these morons on television never said a word -- but they knew. Hell, most of 'em probably participated in it.

But thing that boosted the marked started, of course, last week, when Rick "Homeowners are lazy slackers who should lose their homes if they can't pay the mortgage no matter what the reason" Santelli for his insane rant on the floor of Wall Street with a Greek chorus of traders behind him backing his position that it's the poor folks on Wall Street who are really suffering, not the regular people who watched their 401(K)s sink to oblivion.

Stewart had intended, of course, to take on Santelli face to face, but the weasel canceled, naturally. So Stewart aired his pre-prepared video -- the one he was going to show before the Santelli interview -- all by itself. It was devastating to CNBC in general and Jim "Mad Money" Cramer in particular.

Cramer, arrogant bastard that he is, took it personally and fired back on Monday, saying Stewart's treatment "rankles me" and whining he'd been taken out of context and that he hadn't said three days before the company folded that people should buy Bear Stearns. The market hit a 12-year low that afternoon, but Stewart responded that night, noting that no, Cramer hadn't in fact recommended buying Bear Stearns three days before it folded. It was five days before, and he played the tape.

The next day, the Dow gained 379 points, its biggest gain in 2009. But Cramer hit The Today Show and Morning Joe that morning trying to defend himself. That was when the Stewart as a "variety show" host came up.

Now cautiously optimistic that Stewart might go after Cramer again, investors tweaked out a small gain that afternoon. Stewart did not disappoint. He responded with tape of Cramer's show with all its silly sound effects. And tape of himself appearing on Dora the Explorer and The Hills.

By the end of the next day, Cramer was scheduled for Stewart's last show of the week. All I can about that is, what were they thinking? Did they expect a proper English tea party?

To prepare for the meeting, Cramer hit Martha Stewart's show that morning. And we all know how that went over.

In fact, the Dow was up another 240 points at closing, all in anticipation of Cramer vs. Stewart.

It wasn't even close. Stewart held Cramer's feet to the fire and never let up. "It's not a fucking game," he told the awfully contrite Cramer.

It was a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

And the Dow closed up another 54 points at the end of the week. Cramer has disappeared from sight, and the NBC networks have been ordered not to talk about the rumble they hyped all week long. Supposedly, he told friends he felt blindsided by Stewart's hostile approach.

A brief pause while you let that sink in.

So, you see, Stewart taking down one of the chief cozy-up-to-the CEOs guys gave investors a boost of confidence that will probably disappear next week when we get the report that industrial production and factory output declined in February (Monday) along with reports on housing and wholesale inflation (Tuesday), the Consumer Price Index (Wednesday), the weekly jobless report (Thursday) and a Ben Bernanke speech on Friday.

Unless Cramer's meltdown creates some serious changes in financial reporting to give investors some trust that they might actually hear the truth from their mouths, next week we go back to the deep recession.

Or maybe Stewart can take on some of my colleagues next week. If he'd like a list of potential targets ...

Cross-posted at News Writer's Guide to the Market

The News Writer
AWOP Political Contributing Editor
Author of Stop The Press Blog

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