Demonic_ How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America - Ann Coulter [125]
Finally, for the cherry on top, Cramer said, “The reason why it’s been so hard for me, the attacks, is that early on I patterned my show off of his.”15
Cramer’s actual appearance on Stewart’s show was even more humiliating. The opening exchange got the ball rolling:
Stewart: How the hell did we end up here, Mr. Cramer? What happened?
Cramer: I don’t know. I don’t know. Big fan of the show. Who’s never said that?
The key to understanding liberals is that “It is the need not of liberty, but of servitude that is always predominant in the soul of crowds.”16 It’s striking how people in thrall to groupthink will, as Le Bon says, obey their designated leaders “much more docilely than they have obeyed any government.”17
As Stewart relentlessly badgered and insulted him, Cramer rolled on his back, bleating, “I got a lot of things wrong.… I don’t think anyone should be spared in this environment.… I try really hard to make as many good calls as I can.… You had a great piece about short selling earlier.… Absolutely we could do better. Absolutely.… I should do a better job at it.… I’m trying. I’m trying. Am I succeeding? I’m trying.… How about if I try it? Try doing that. I’ll try that.… I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right.… Look, I have called for star chambers—I want kangaroo courts for these guys.… Okay. All right. You’re right. I don’t want to personalize it.… True. True. I think, as a network, we produce a lot of interviews where I think that we have been—there have been people who have not told the truth. Should we have been constantly pointing out the mistakes that were made? Absolutely. I truly wish we had done more.… I wish I had done a better job.…”18
The next day, Cramer failed to show up for his scheduled appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, presumably because he was still showering off the humiliation. The herd was ecstatic—they had forced a loudmouthed liberal to issue obsequious, abject apologies for deviating from the party line on Obama. James Fallows exclaimed in the Atlantic, “Jon Stewart has become Edward R. Murrow” and compared Stewart’s idiotic grandstanding to David Frost interviewing Richard Nixon.19
What was the point of Stewart’s holier-than-thou showboating? Cramer and others on CNBC made lots of bad calls. So what? Some of their calls were accurate and some were not. Showing video of the specific bad calls to prove an analyst sucks is like showing video of Alex Rodriguez striking out a dozen times to prove he’s a lousy baseball player.
It was just the ritualistic bloodletting to show that you must never diverge from liberal groupthink, rather like the ceremonial execution of the admiral in Voltaire’s Candide for the minor offense of failing to engage a French fleet at a closer distance. His merciless execution was necessary, Candide is told, “to encourage the others.”20
Wanting the good opinion of Jon Stewart, two months after Stewart had gone on CNN’s Crossfire back in 2004, and attacked the show for “hurting America,” then–network president Jon Klein announced that he was canceling Crossfire and cutting all ties to co-host Tucker Carlson. Klein explained that his decision to dump Carlson was inspired by Stewart’s Crossfire appearance. “I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart’s overall premise,” he said.21 Carlson’s co-host, Paul Begala, was presumably as guilty of “hurting America” as Carlson, inasmuch as he was one-half of the same debate show. But Begala was a liberal, so he was off the hook. The problem, evidently, had less to do with the debate format than the participation of a conservative.
Sarah Palin is catnip for very insecure people trying to make their bones with liberal elites. If your politics are sincerely Hollywood liberal, this is a very good time to be an American. You can make a lot of money sneering at Sarah Palin.
No one is more desperate for acceptance by liberal