Open Letter to Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money

March 7th, 2009

 Dear Jim,

I’ve been a big fan of yours and Mad Money for at least a couple of years now. You’re a smart, successful former money manager who obviously likes to inform as much or more than you like to entertain and you do both very well. I get your sense of humor and although I don’t seek to imitate your exact style of investing, it’s not because I don’t respect it, it’s because I recognize that it just doesn’t suite me personally. I still consider your show extremely educational so much so that I record it daily. If you were a self-serving blow-hard like some of your critics claim, it would be obvious to many of your viewers and you would be doomed to the ratings of your NBC colleagues like Keith Olbermann or even Chris Matthews.

Jim, you’ve often prefaced comments you knew would be poorly received in certain elite society by saying that you were about to get yourself banned from all the important dinner parties in New York. Well Jim, you’ve really gone and done it now. On Tuesday, March 3, on the Today show you seriously put your “important party” future on the line by saying that Obama’s “radical agenda…the most, greatest wealth destructive I’ve seen by a president.” Later on Mad Money, you called Obama the “expropriator-in-chief.” As a result, your party invitations may go down but I predict the number of people quietly pulling you aside, looking over both shoulders to make sure they are not overheard, and asking you, plaintively of course, “what is happening?” will go up dramatically.

The next day, Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs implied that you have a small audience by saying, “if you turn on a certain program it’s geared to a very small audience.” This answer was in response to a specific question about you so there’s no question it was Mad Money to which he was referring. Gibbs next implied that your were at best an unreliable opinion on which to rely by saying, ”the basis for what Mr. Cramer said, I’m not entirely sure what he’s pointing to to make some of the statements that he’s made. I think you can go back and look at any number of statements that he’s made in the past about the economy and where some of the backup for those are, too.”

Later that day, Rush Limbaugh noted that you had joined an exclusive but likely growing club including Limbaugh, fellow CNBC personality Rick Santelli, Joe the Plumber and you, James J. Cramer; three people who would not normally be considered members of the same political herd by any stretch yet share the common characteristic of being targeted by the White House for marginalization for being prominent people who have had the insolence to question the Obama Administration’s Orwellian proclamations.

The following day, March 5, you released My Response to the White House on MainStreet.com

The highlights were when you acknowledge Obama’s “stimulus” plan is not really stimulus but a “hodgepodge of old democratic pork [that will] not create nearly as many manufacturing or service jobs as we hoped.” You called the stimulus “a parody of China’s plan.” [Emphasis mine]. Finally, you remind readers that although Obama inherited a banking crisis, he has turned it into “every area is in crisis” crisis by “creating an atmosphere of fear and panic rather than an atmosphere of calm and hope.”

To paraphrase Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard, I’d like to express to you, Jim “welcome to this party, pal!”

You also write in your Response that you “thought Obama to be a middle-of-the-road Democrat.”

And finally, this gem to remind people of your liberal bona fides as if “Harvard Law” weren’t enough, ‘I actually embrace every part of Obama’s agenda…But these are issues that we have no time for now, on the verge of a second Great Depression. This is an agenda that must be held back for better times.”

Jim, I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask you-just between us, of course. Jim, please, please clarify why you believe that if Obama’s agenda is bad for the economy in bad times, why is it not bad in good times?

Jim, you were magna cum laude at Harvard; you were admitted to the New York Bar; you worked as a reporter; you were hired and were successful at Goldman Sachs, a virtual beehive of really, really smart people, and you ran one of the most successful hedge funds of its time. Jim, in your training as an attorney and reporter as well as your general stature as a smart guy, what would you site as the evidence to support your conclusion that Obama was, “a middle-of-the-road Democrat?” Words by a political candidate do not count as evidence.

As the old saying goes, “if you want to take the measure of the man, look at his friends.” Obama’s entire history of friends was “radical” yet you saw “middle-of-the-road.” Well, to be fair you saw “middle-of-the-road Democrat” which is probably about 45 degrees off from General American middle-of-the-road but the point is that the facts pointed to an Obama as a far, far left-wing radical that has never understood or tried to understand, even slightly, what makes America work. After his one brief exposure to a private sector job he wrote that he, “felt like a spy behind enemy lines” going to work each day. As if that weren’t enough, the evidence was overwhelming that Obama’s friends as well as his intimate relationships like his wife (“first time proud” of her country at age 44) and his pastor of 20 years (9-11 was “America’s chickens coming home to roost”) held America in contempt. All the hard evidence glossed over by the “vigilant” press and willfully ignored by a gullible portion of the public strongly suggested the man that did not have the slightest idea what makes America work.

Let me set it up this next question by noting that you and most of your dinner party hosts are smart people by almost any standard, yet you were dramatically wrong on your evaluation of Obama while many of us State University rubes from middle America took an accurate measure of the man months before the election. Why do you think that is?

Jim, I’m not trying to be too hard on you, in fact I’d like to compliment you on the American exceptionalism-like traits in your Response to the White House. Limbaugh said you were being targeted but wouldn’t go down without a fight. Your response? (perhaps with a bit of word play) “Limbaugh’s dead right. I’m not a flight not fight kind of guy.” Booya, Jim. You wrote that you would fight for what you believe in including that “every person has a right to be rich in this country and I want to help them get there.” With all due respect, I think you meant every person has the right to aspire to become rich or the right to be rich without undue persecution from the government (see “pursuit of happiness”). I salute your desire to empower the common person with the knowledge to help him or her improve his station in life.

Finally Jim, although I think your political acumen leaves something to be desired, your overall credentials are stellar and you have volunteered to stand up for economic freedom and for “the army that Obama may not even know exists — tens of millions of people who live in fear of having no money saved when they need it and who get poorer by the day.”

If it were within my power, I would hereby appoint you General of the Left Flank.

Best Regards,

Editor

AmericanExceptionalism.com

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Revisiting Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address

January 18th, 2009

On January 11, 1989, after two terms, President Ronald Reagan delivered his Farewell Address to the Nation from the Oval Office.  Like many great leaders before him, Reagan saw a strong, prosperous America as an example to the rest of the world.  But in the tradition of presidential farewells, Reagan offers fair warning as well.

Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells, and I’ve got one that’s been on my mind for some time.  But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I’m proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won’t count for much, and it won’t last unless it’s grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

There’s no doubt the country had lost much of its pride in the tumultuous two decades before Reagan.  The generation that returned from war and turned its vigor to building a more prosperous land began to see their world unravel with the assassination of President Kennedy.  Neither the depression nor World War II had been on TV but now the events of the times were being edited for television and seen on the nightly news.

The righteous but raucous struggles of the civil rights movement was, however justified, creating a general sense of turmoil and in some places had deteriorated into large and destructive race riots.  Many who were inclined toward civil disobedience looked at the civil rights movement and somehow concluded that it was the raucous that was important; the righteous they would redefine.  Anti-war protest and the open, unembarrassed preoccupation with free love and illegal drug use became fashionable with the children for whom the World War II generation had sacrificed so much to send off to college.

In a relatively short period of time Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were all a shot dead while presidential candidate George Wallace was shot and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.  A skeptical but trusted Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam after Tet and reported that things didn’t seem to be going well.   A dejected President Johnson declined to run for reelection.

There were violent protests and resultant violent police intervention at the ’68 democrat convention.  The shooting at Kent State in 1970 during a student anti-war protest by the Ohio National Guard killed four and injured nine.  Night after night, month after month, year after year there was the nightly body count from Vietnam on the evening news.

President Nixon resigned instead of facing certain impeachment but not before trying to violate the laws of economics and thus, he instituted price controls in an attempt to control inflation.  President Ford largely marked time in a line of uninspired and unsuccessful leadership.  The era saw double-digit inflation, soaring interest rates, gas lines, and economic stagnation.  President Carter seemed resigned to the “malaise” and to our declining influence and prosperity.

The Dow in March of 1980 was essentially where it had been in November of 1963.

The optimism and confidence of the post-war years in America was all but dead when Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981.

Ronald Reagan connected with the people.  He believed, “I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things.”  He noted that, “these ideas didn’t spring full bloom from my brow” but came from forgotten “principles which have guided us for two centuries.”  Reagan noted that while his ideas were from fundamental principles and common sense, then as now there was no shortage of naysayers trying to pull them down.

Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that “the engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they’re likely to stay that way for years to come.” Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called “radical” was really “right.” What they called “dangerous” was just “desperately needed.”

Reagan spoke about the near-universal, pro-American culture that existed before the Great Malaise.  It instilled on the next generation, he said, the principles of individual freedom and values.

And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?  Those of us who are over 35 [in 1989] or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood… Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-’60s.

The pop-culture and the schools celebrating the idea that America is special?  A different America indeed.

Reagan went on to say:

Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom–freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.

Looking back over the years since Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address, have we as a culture taken Reagan’s advice and protected freedom by reinstitutionalizing the appreciation for the values and institutions that made this country great or have we allowed a misled and mutinous minority to redefine what it means to be great?  Many have stepped into the breach created by Reagan’s departure but many more remain oblivious to the threat to our prosperity and on the wrong side of the cultural chasm.  If we continue to allow those who call evil good and good evil tell us which values and institutions are worthy we will one day find ourselves 179° from being right while the freedoms and blessings we have taken for granted will be far removed.

Ronald Reagan deserves much of the credit for bringing back the American spirit by rekindling timeless values and optimism in the people.  But we as a country may not be able to afford to wait for another great communicator and leader as President to promote those ideas.  In the absence of great national leadership, we must each step up to our roles as positive, optimistic role models in our own sphere of influence.

Reagan said in this speech that “all great change in America begins at the dinner table.”  If you are not ceaselessly teaching your children about the value of big ideas like freedom, virtue, character, God, and civic responsibility you can be assured that the pop-culture is teaching them something completely different.

Reagan offered a suggestion to the children of America.

So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ‘em know and nail ‘em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

21st century children’s update:  Many of you might have to ask your grandparents.

Finally, Reagan closed his address with these words:

And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Amen.

The full transcript of Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address may be found at

ronaldreagan.com/.

The video of the speech is on YouTube at this link:

youtube.com/watch?v=gIouq2u9kUo

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Palin americanexceptionalism.com’s Person of the Year 2008

December 31st, 2008

Before August 29, 2008 Sarah Palin, despite being Governor, led a life most Americans would at least recognize: career, wife, mother, church.  In her now-famous words, she was “just your average hockey mom.”

Suddenly tapped by moribund Republican presidential nominee John McCain as his vice-presidential running mate, she was quickly sucked into the whirlwind of attention like Dorothy out of a cornfield where many on the left sensed that a naïve rube had landed in their midst and would make easy prey in the land of sophisticates.

They had a tiger by the tail.

Sarah Louis Heath was born February 11, 1964 in Sandpoint, Idaho the third child of four to high school science teacher and track coach Charles (Chuck) Heath and his school secretary wife, Sarah.  The family soon moved to Alaska in search of adventure where Sarah would grow up.

Chuck was an avid hunter and early-morning hunts, including Moose, were common for all the children.  Sarah has remained an advocate of hunters’ rights and is a lifetime member of the NRA.

Sarah was active in sports during her school years where she ran hurdles, relays and cross-country on the track team, which her dad coached.  She also participated in softball and volleyball.  But it was in basketball that Sarah really made a name for herself.  On the court, Sarah’s intense and tenacious defense earned her the nickname Sarah “Barracuda.”  It was definitely a term of endearment.  Her senior year, she was captain of her Wasilla High School Warrior basketball team that won the state championship.  In the title game, she hit the front end of a one and one with thirty seconds to play to put her team up by five.  Oh yea, she was playing with a painful stress fracture in her foot.

Not considered a particularly gifted athlete, Sarah more than compensated for any athletic deficiency with a first-rate work ethic and an exceptional attitude that made her the team’s undisputed leader.

Also in high school, Sarah was head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter.  She graduated High School in 1982.

In 1984 Sarah won the Miss Wasilla Pageant.  She advanced to the Miss Alaska contest where she became not only first runner up but was selected by her peers as Miss Congeniality as well.

After bouncing around a bit as an undergraduate, Sarah graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science degree in communication-journalism.  She returned to Alaska and took jobs in sports reporting for television and print.  It was about this time that Sarah eloped with her long-time sweetheart, Todd Palin.

Todd Palin works BP on the North Slope oil fields and is a member of the United Steelworkers.  He is also a seasonal commercial salmon fisherman, called “setnetters”, on the Nushagak River at Bristol Bay.  Todd owns and flies his own Piper Super-Cub.  As a hobby Todd has become an extremely successful snowmachine racer having won the Tesoro Iron Dog four times and come in second another three times. The Iron Dog is the world’s longest at 1971 miles.  For safety the riders compete in two-man teams. In 2008 while defending his title and 400 miles from the finish, Todd was thrown 70 feet from his machine and suffered a broken arm.  After treatment he continued the race.  His team finished fourth.

Todd and Sarah Palin have five children.  The oldest, Track, enlisted in the army on September 11, 2007 and was deployed to Iraq with his unit in September of 2008.  The oldest daughter Bristol was famously pregnant during the campaign.  She became the mother of Sarah Palin’s first grandchild, Tripp, born on December 27, 2008.  Willow, born in 1995, is the middle daughter.  The youngest daughter Piper, born in 2001, was caught by the camera licking her hand and using it to style young Trig’s hair.  Trig was born in 2008; he was prenatally diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

Sarah Palin’s political career began when she won a seat on the Wasilla city council in 1992 at the age of 28.  In 1996 during her second term on the council, Palin ran for Mayor and won.  She was 32 years old.  After being term limited out of office in 2002, Palin unsuccessfully ran for Lieutenant Governor. That same year long-time U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski won the Alaskan governorship.  As the new Governor Murkowski had the power to appoint his replacement in the senate and it has been reported that he considered Palin for the position.  Perhaps, but in the end, Murkowski chose to appoint his daughter Lisa Murkowski U.S. Senator.

The elder Murkowski did appoint Palin to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.  In January of 2004 she resigned sighting a “lack of ethics” on the commission.  After resigning she was party to complaints filed against two of her former colleagues on the commission, both republican; both later resigned.

In 2004 Lisa Murkowski’s senate seat was up for election.  Palin declined to run citing family considerations. Senators spend large blocks of time in Washington D.C. and her youngest child was 3 years old and her oldest was 14.

In 2006, Palin ran against the incumbent and daughter-appointing-to-the-senate Governor Frank Murkowski.  She beat Murkowski in the Republican primary.  She then faced democrat and former governor Tony Knowles in the general election where she won the office by a fairly comfortable margin of 48.3% to 40.9%.

At 42, Sarah Palin became the youngest governor in the relatively short history of Alaskan statehood.  She is also the first woman to hold the office.  Polls taken in 2007 showed her popularity among the voters of Alaska at 93% and 89% approval.

How fast can one’s life change dramatically?  On August 29, 2008 Sarah Palin was named John McCain’s running mate.  Someone used to making the decisions and calling the shots now had to defer her every step to political handlers whom she did not know and often did not agree.  Meanwhile a horde of media as well as private investigators descended on Alaska, the media ostensibly vetting the candidate; the private sleuths looking for a morsel of some past indiscretion that could be spun to make her candidacy impotent.  Her national reputation was largely a blank slate and the race to be the first to fill it in was on.

Much of her evaluation by the press seemed to affirm the double standard about which media critics often rail.  At her convention speech the reporters were quick to point out that although the speech was good, she didn’t write it.  Also, they pointed out, “some people” considered the speech “shrill” (namely Obama staffers).  Coincidently, those same “some people” were texting the reporters as the speech was concluding hoping to put critical words in their mouths.

There was public speculation on whether or not she could be a good mom and still be a good mother.  Can you imagine for a moment the howls of protest if this had been said about a liberal mother?

There was the charge of she’s too “inexperienced” even though she clearly had more executive experience than any of the other three on the ballot.  Whether or not her experience or that of the other candidates qualified any of them to be president is another topic.

The left was particularly concerned that she was a Christian.  Never mind Obama’s public proclamation of being a Christian.  Either they don’t believe him or they believe in the double standard.

The biggest “Christian” tale to get traction was the one Charlie Gibson surprised Palin with during his interview when he referenced a previous remark she had made to a church group in Alaska by asking her if she really believed the troops (in Iraq) were on a mission “from God.”   “Exact words,” Gibson responded to Palin’s, “I don’t think I said that.”  Taken in context, Palin’s remark in front of the group was that we should pray that our leaders use our military wisely so that it is used only in ways that God approves and thus have his blessing.  That idea may impossible for many modern pagans to understand but it is basic Christianity 101 and a concept our founding fathers would have understood.  Gibson’s “exact words” moment is much like “dog bites boy” v. “boy bites dog.”  Exact words.

Gibson’s interview was a trap.  The question that got the lion’s share of attention was, “Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?”  If there were any doubt the question was purposefully vague in order to encourage failure that was settled as he left her twisting in the wind even after she asked, “In what respect, Charlie?”  As Charles Krauthammer points out, there have been at least four separate themes called “the Bush Doctrine.”  George Bush himself would’ve needed clarification on the question.

Let’s not forget the wardrobe fuss.  Rumors swirled that Palin was a diva; that she had been given an unlimited clothing budget and exceeded it.  Palin denied ever having personally done any shopping for the campaign and says the wardrobe in question was waiting for her when she arrived at the convention. She claims most of it was never worn and to the best of her knowledge, it has all been returned to the RNC.

Finally, there is the one indictment that will be with Sarah Palin as long as she lives (as a conservative) and that is that she is an intellectual lightweight trying to play out of her league.  Facts will never be allowed to get in the way of this charge.  This is the deuces, eights and one-eyed jacks are suddenly wild cards played against almost every conservative of consequence.

Ronald Reagan: champion cold warrior?  Economic rebuilder extraordinaire?  Slayer of the Carter malaise and rekindler of the American spirit?  Nope.  Dim as a winter’s day in Alaska according to the left and the media.  He brought the world to the brink of annihilation and if he did anything that worked, it must’ve been luck.  It’s worth noting that the at-the-time worst president in history has recently polled as the greatest president of the 20th century.

Let’s not forget George W. Bush whose every halting “uh” is a painful reminder of the Harvard MBA’s embarrassing lack of intelligence while every “er” uttered by Obama, and there are many, stand as testimonials to the unfathomable depth of his intellect.  Palin will get Bush’s press, not Obama’s.

Sarah Palin was targeted for destruction, even by some in her own party, because of her effectiveness, her widespread appeal, and her potential to upset the apple cart.  But like George Washington in General Braddock’s expedition of 1755, she has fought her first battle of national significance and in the face of focused, withering fire emerged wiser and with critical wounds only to her wardrobe and to the horse on which she rode in.

Palin was wildly popular with conservatives during the campaign.  She was greeted very enthusiastically at campaign stops where many had turned out to see her, more so than McCain.  While conservatives respected McCain’s service to his country, they could never truly embrace him.  McCain’s biggest weakness was repeatedly stabbing his friends in the back to try and gain the fleeting favor of his enemies. The outcome of that strategy was predictable.

Regardless of what most of them would have you believe, politicians don’t typically make exceptional Americans; however, it’s refreshing when one does.  Sarah Palin’s story is one of traditional American values and the can-do attitude that always been a part of this great country. That foundation has made her successful at every stage of her life so far and thus, her success is likely to continue.  Sarah Palin is an excellent role model, particularly for young women wise enough to turn down the empty static of pop culture values and concentrate on substance.  She was prepared and seized the moment when opportunity came knocking, no doubt facing down fears of doubt and failure.

Sarah Palin is an exceptional American.  In fact, she is AmericanExceptionalism.com’s Person of the Year 2008.

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