Cramer: Does Obama Care About the Stock Market?

A remarkable thing happened last night on the MSM. CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer yesterday pinned the tail of recent stock market declines squarely on President Obama's backside. It was remarkable opening commentary, from a Wall Street guy who admits to supporting Obama's policy goals and who all but endorsed his candidacy during the campaign.

Only twice before in my memory has Cramer ventured into the political realm to assign blame for stock market performance -- last summer and fall, respectively, with Bush deficits and Bernanke/Fed inaction on the collapse of major investment banking firms.

Cramer's treatment of Obama was gentle compared to the spitting-mad tirade he threw at Bernanke ("'They know NOTHING!). 

Cramer says nothing we haven't heard at this and other conservative blogs -- except to agree that national health care, cap-and-trade, are good policy objectives, they just have to be pursued at the right time.

At the same time last night, David Gergen commented on Anderson Cooper that Obama's team seems to be losing focus, pushing too many ambitious policy goals to the point where they are starting to undermine the foundation objective of stabilizing the economy.

All of this commentary points to one of two possibilities: Either Obama is an overly ambitious Harvard guy, naive about how much change the national can absorb in a year, or he is a reckless ideologue -- he just doesn't care if his accelerated agenda wipes out private savings, because he is so absolutely certain in that "righteous wind at our backs."

Cramer himself raised the possibility that maybe he "just doesn't care about the stock market," and implored Obama to show otherwise.

As if in response this morning, Obama says he won't base policy on the "gyrations" of the financial markets.

Fair statement, but it only proves Cramer's point: There is no gyration in the markets; it is a freefall collapse. Were that we were seeing gyrations! Two and three hundred point drops wouldn't be so troubling. But the decline, since the election and inauguration, has been steady and strong, especially after Obama policy pronoundements.

If capital is indeed on strike, and stays on strike, Obama's confident words this morning about a 2009 recovery ("I'm certain of it") will come back to haunt him, just as John McCain was quickly haunted by his statement that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. It will be no satisfaction to see, given the suffering that is being inflicted.