Is It in Apple's DNA to Say: "I'm Sorry?"

It may not be the silliest thing Jim Cramer has ever said. But it came close.

"I don't care if they treat shareholders horribly. The fact is - is that they make you money and there's lots of companies that treat you real well and have really good corporate governance and are letting you into any boardroom and they're awful. I'll take performance any day of the week..."

He was talking about Apple, a company that Cramer said should get a special pass because it makes great products and oh yeah, its stock has been gangbusters.

Was he serious or just doing shtick? Hard to know but during a brief "Stop Trading" segment on CNBC Thursday, Cramer said it boiled down to rooting for companies whose stocks go up.

"I'm a dollar sign represented by a man," he said.

Fair enough. If that's the benchmark, then there are lots of people - particularly within the moneyed class in America - who would side with Cramer and give Steve Jobs a pass. What's a periodic antenna reception problem when you're the hottest thing on Wall Street?

But if recent history teaches anything, it's that people under the influence of stock-induced sugar highs always come up with inventive justifications to rationalize the behavior of companies they invest in.

Once upon a time, let's recall that many in the investment world - as well as the media, unfortunately - were convinced that the folks who ran Enron were financial wizards. In the end, that didn't work out too well for all concerned. Ditto for WorldCom and Tyco, along with a host of lesser well-known, though equally bogus outfits. As long as their share prices kept hitting new all-time highs, they got a free pass. Then the music stopped and we know how that tale ended.

Apple obviously is in a different category. Yes, it's rightfully taken heat over its options backdating practices and a decision to keep Jobs medical condition a secret. But those are just symptoms of the same mindset that's led Apple to this latest PR crisis. Apple's not trouble not because it's crooked. Apple's in trouble because it's turned tone deaf.

If you talk with iPhone 4 users about the antenna reception problems dogging their new smartphone devices, you'll hear a different narrative than the one Cramer is peddling. Apple's public response earlier this month blaming the problem on a meter measuring AT&T's signal strength was a tour de force in corporate buck passing. Read that statement and you come away convinced of a couple of things: Not only do they eat their own dog food, but they throw in a heaping helping of baloney as well. (Consumer Reports put paid to the notion that this is a minor glitch with their very public thumbs down.) Developer Dave Winer recently pointed out that "Apple has no concept of what's it like to be disbelieved, untrusted, seen as an American corporation and nothing more."

Hyperbole? That's what Apple might say. But the evidence keeps piling up and on the eve of a highly-anticipated Apple press conference, Bloomberg now is reporting that an Apple antenna expert and a "carrier partner" shared their concerns about dropped antenna reception with top management prior to the iPhone 4 debut in late June. I know both of the reporters who teamed up on that story and they're among the best in the business.

When he faces the press, Jobs - and it can't be a stand-in - now has to convince the world that Apple gets it The question is whether it's in the company's corporate DNA to admit that it actually goofed. If past is prologue, few would take that bet.