On Chris Matthews Show, Cramer called Edwards "the equivalent on Wall Street of -- he's Trotsky"
On the February 25 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, during a discussion of presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), host Chris Matthews said to roundtable guest Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's Mad Money, "You don't like [Edwards] because he's against free trade," to which Cramer replied, "He's a tort lawyer for heaven's sake. He's a -- that's the equivalent on Wall Street of -- he's [Russian communist leader Leon] Trotsky."
Cramer's comment is the latest in a series of statements in recent weeks by reporters and pundits attempting to link Democratic presidential candidates to communism. As Media Matters for America previously noted, in a February 21 guest commentary for the website InsightMag.com, Joseph Beaudoin, described by the website as an "author and former investment banker," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is "red as in Lenin." Also, while reporting on a Clinton speech on the February 2 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron said that Clinton's "pledge to take oil company profits and put them into an energy fund" is "an idea not likely to go over well with capitalists."
From the February 25 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show:
CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): Well, we put it to the Matthews Meter, by the way -- 12 of our regular panelists. Do the Democrats need an economic downturn to win in '08, like previous parties did to get into power? By a unanimous vote, the meter says no. Norah, you're with the majority. The Democrats don't need bad times to win next year.
NORAH O'DONNELL (MSNBC chief Washington correspondent): No. I think that, ultimately, what voters are going to cast their vote for, who they're going to elect, has to do -- what gut values appeal to them on the candidate. Is it someone who talks about community, integrity, all those sorts of issues, and when it comes to an economic message, does it seem like someone who connects with you? Those are just sort of gut values things, and those are becoming more and more important, not only in politics, but in business, in advertising, et cetera. We've seen the research on that.
MATTHEWS: Edwards is trying the hardest to connect with people. Is it working?
O'DONNELL: But some people would say that message only connects with --
MATTHEWS: You don't like him because he's against free trade.
CRAMER: He's a tort lawyer, for heaven's sake. He's a -- that's the equivalent on Wall Street of -- he's Trotsky.
MATTHEWS: Who has a good message out there, of the Democrats?
CRAMER: Of the Democrats, who has a good message? You know, Hillary probably has the safest message because her husband was great for Wall Street --
MATTHEWS: For trade. He's for free trade.
CRAMER: Yes.
Yeah right, all these pundits and reporters got together at their recent "bash the Democrats" meeting and decided the newest, smartest and most effective strategy was to "link the Democratic Presidential candidates to communism."
The "red" sky is falling..............it's really falling!
Not Trotsky (he wrote stuff)---Hood!
I generally prefer to view Edwards more like a Che Guevera of sorts -- only without the beard and bad hygiene and Revolutionary attitude and communism. Outside of all that, it is a near perfect analogy.
Che Guevara was a middle-class doctoral student who traveled South America and was deeply moved by the vast inequity and unequality he witnessed. Edwards is a millionaire who has drawn a fat public paycheck for doing nothing to help the poor and downtrodden. Please do NOT compare him to the great Che, it's an insult to El Commandante's memory.
Drats. Yet another flaw in my otherwise insightful analogy. Curse you! (shakes fist angrily)
;^)
Who says the effort has to be 'concerted'... This guy's comment is off the cuff and lame. Frankly, I don't really get the association... is it because Edwards is from the "Left Opposition"? Whatever...
Leon Trotsky
What is this 1950? (didn't Russia and the Eastern Block countries fall apart? Or did I go back in time?)
Maybe in an effort to clean out the neo-con and fundi-fanatic elements in the republican party, the leaders of the party had to recycle a political strategy guide from 1954? Because even China is beginning to lean more pro-capitalist every year.
This is hardly a new tactic.
Referring to Liberals as socialists or as communist sympathizers has been around for awhile. And didn't die out with the collapse of the USSR.
Even Archie Bunker proclaimed that his son-in-law Mike [the meathead] was a "pinko liberal commie." ;-)
heh, and any time progressives call them fascists, which is not often and is in response to their totalitarian and often fascist positions, they get pissy and cry for an apology.
Actually AshenShard referring to the current crop of Republican/Conservatives as Fascists is quite common [though it's seems to be used by bloggers & posters on various sites--including this one--rather than any pundits, or journalists]
The Far-Rightwing neocons deserve to be called Fascists.
Is that what this is all about? Man... an oldie, but a goody I guess.
By the way, I prefer "meathead" :)
well yeah Jetter,
Its just been so long since someone (other than Rush) used that phrase in the MSM, it seems like we are reading a history book.
(BTW I especially didn't like that "Pinko" part. Especially since he did that little hand wave gesture when he said it. Just shows a lack of knowledge regarding history.)
Would Reports call any Republicans "Trotsky'?
Reporters. Sorry
Actually Doris, neither man referenced here is a reporter. One is a commentator host of a cable show, the other is a guest columnist on a newsmag website. Strictly their opinions, no reporting involved.
Tommy, that is just semantics. But I can rephrase my question. Would reporters and commentators in the MSM call a Republican a "Trotsky'?
That's fine Doris, but there is significant difference between objective reporters reporting on news events, and opinionated commentators commenting on news events.
I agree with your statement .
Now I am waiting for mefirst to say Tommy= Doris. LOL
Our dear child will show up soon, especially if he wants his allowance.
seeing that there are lots and lots of lawyers, even tort lawyers who call themselves republicans, it would only be honest for them to do so. So of course it will never happen.
I'm confused. So according to Jim Cramer, Edwards is Trotsky while, in the world according to Joseph Beaudoin, Hillary is Lenin. Cramer, meanwhile, says Wall Street likes Hillary because we can assume vis-a-vis her husband that she is Free Trade. But who in this picture is Stalin? Whoever in the Democratic Party the Republicans choose to tar with that epithet, I guess Edwards should avoid any vacations in Mexico City.
I thought Edwards was a greedy trial lawyer, only interested in amassing a personal fortune.I gotta keep up.
He's not greedy.
He just likes a lot.
yeah, Hey Edwards look out for that ice pick!
In order to understand the relationship that Republicans have to their opposition I need only remind you that Republicans chose to annoint drug czars and education czars to deal with those issues. More recently, we learned that Paul Bremmer really wanted the title of Viceroy of Iraq. Is it any wonder, therefore, that these czarists are labelling the opposition as pinko-commies?
Uhm, Clinton had a rather nasty "drug czar", McCaffrey. He oversaw the destruction of the 4th Amendment in the case of asset forfeiture and increased militarized police raids on family homes. He set up a US private army in Colombia to burn down villages of coca farmers and began spraying them and their children with toxic defoliants (chemical warfare against civilians, war crime). And he presided over the US becoming the world's top incarcerator of it's own people, for what cannot be considered a crime according to the Constitution.
I'm looking forward to the pundits referring to McCain as "Hitler," Giuliani as "Goebbels," Romney as "Goering," etc.
Me too, as long as they don't go on and on about Goering's chin.
Or Goering exhuding vigor (or what ever they called it before)
I don't think many people would have wanted what Goering was exuding, especially after his third trip to the buffet table.
Not the real Goering of course, but Romney as Goering (see Rusty's comment above)
Got it. I was just taking a bad joke and (rather lamely) running with it. Let it never be said that I am afraid to have fun at the expense of a long-dead Nazi.
Gemutlich !
It had better be "Gemutlich ' if anyone is going to rest "sein Paket" there.
Okay, I never got German (must be a Jewish thing), "Gemutlich" means joy, good feeling, good spirit
but what is "sein Paket"
Ic nana ic braken banan (Gaelic, rusty perhaps, but acurate)
I't a bad internet English to German translation of the phrase "his package'.
And I think HBL's reference was to last weeks thread concerning Romney's "comfortable" (Gemutlich ) chin.
I, of course, can barely speak or write the English language, but it doesn't stop me from trying to squeeze a really bad offensive joke from it when I can.
Yeah, King, I went to an on-line German dictionary, and picked from about 20 translations of "comfortable". I will not let this one die!
I'm with you, HBL. Must have something to do with being dumb Irishmen. We can't let things go until we beat them to death.
...dumb Irishmen. We can't let things go until we beat them to death.- worrierking
Jokes, arguments and kids. ;0)
Godwin's Law: the first person to bring up Hitler loses the argument. No such rule about Stahlin, AFAIK. Therefore, this Lenin, Trotsky, Stahlin business is just an evil plot to get us to mention the Nazis.
Godwin was a Nazi.
Does anyone think Cramer looks a little like Lenin?
Yikes, Christopher- how'd we all miss that?
Kudlow used to call Cramer a Liberal, when they partnered on Kudlow and Cramer. I think maybe he's a Demo. He IS a very charitable guy. Makes a lot of dough in his charitable trust, and gives it all away.
Okay, so Edwards isn't exactly my favorite candidate. His excessive hokeyness is not real endearing in my opinion. But for someone to attack the man for not being "pro-Wall Street" is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. There seems to be this unwavering opinion that what is good for Wall Street is good for America. In reality, what is good for Wall Street has historically been bad for the middle class. Unfortunately, the media doesn't report the economy outside of the Dow and NASDAQ, so who would ever know that the middle class are becoming impoverished and the impoverished are becoming severely impoverished.
Essentially, Edwards should treat the war on the middle class less like some humanitarian outreach and more like the dire socioeconomic dilemma that it is. The middle class has always the foundation of the nation's economy. I'm tired of Wall Street being the barometer of America's economic success or failure, and I'm tired of politicians pandering to Wall Street interests.
If you ask me, the country could use a dash of Trotskyism right now. We have a supposed "Free Market" economy, yet the government has, in recent years, been able to wield its economic authority to manipulate interest rates and free trade in favor of big-business, while suppressing organized labor. A capitalist state that requires this much government-sponsored economic regulation should raise some eyebrows, but it hasn't. As long as the media measures economic success by the relative success of Wall Street, no one will really have any idea as to the state of the economy.
Here's an insight into what's really going on with our economy. It's not pretty.
The Second Great Depression, by Mike Whitney
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney02212007.html
so cramer compares edwards to the revolutionary that tried to keep the ideals the revolution was about- a state that let the people own the economy. while lenin became a dictator that set the stage for stalin and 'the evil empire'.
these tv commentators are a serious problem for america. they are presented as informed, and the public at large is terribly undereducated and seem to accept every bit of misinformation as gospel.
i'm sure most people who heard this think they are smart enough to understand what he said. they remember that name lumped in with all that nonsense they were forced to sit through to get their diplomas. trotsky, lenin, the tsar... they were all communists right? those names were all in that same chapter in the history book you read the night before finals.
You've got alotta nerve, saying everybody crammed the night before finals.
I did it the day AND the night before.
Washington DC and the halls of these tv studios are all crawling with a small army of so-called "experts". All you have to do is read one book more than the average American...which means just ONE books...and they'll stick you on tv and put the "expert" label under you.