Posted on 07/07/2010 8:02:18 PM PDT by neverdem
Even the Aspen Ideas Festival, an annual gathering of the country's brightest lights, isn't Obama country anymore. Lloyd Grove on the president's waning support among the intelligentsia.
You’d think the well-heeled and enlightened eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festival—which is running all week in this fashionable resort town with heady panel discussions and earnest disquisitions involving all manner of deep thinkers and do-gooders—would be receptive to an intellectually ambitious president with big ideas of his own.
In a way, the folks attending this cerebral conclave pairing the Aspen Institute think tank with the Atlantic Monthly magazine might even be seen as President Obama’s natural base.
Apparently not so much.
“The real problem we have,” Mort Zuckerman said, “are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”
Obama’s top economic adviser, Larry Summers, and his departing budget director, Peter Orszag, can expect heavy weather when they land in Aspen later this week to make their case to this civic-minded clique of wealthy skeptics.
“If you’re asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, I’d say it’s actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what we’ve already experienced in Western Europe,” Harvard business and history professor Niall Ferguson declared during Monday’s kickoff session, offering a withering critique of Obama’s economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness.
“The curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they’ll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time,” Ferguson said. “Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy.”
Ferguson was joined in his harsh attack by billionaire real estate mogul and New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. Both lambasted Obama’s trillion-dollar deficit spending program—in the name of economic stimulus to cushion the impact of the 2008 financial meltdown—as fiscally ruinous, potentially turning America into a second-rate power.
“We are, without question, in a period of decline, particularly in the business world,” Zuckerman said. “The real problem we have…are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.”
Zuckerman added that he detects in the Obama White House “hostility to the very kinds of [business] culture that have made this the great country that it is and was. I think we have to find some way of dealing with that or else we will do great damage to this country with a public policy that could ruin everything.”
Ferguson added: “The critical point is if your policy says you’re going run a trillion-dollar deficit for the rest of time, you’re riding for a fall…Then it really is goodbye.” A dashing Brit, Ferguson added: “Can I say that, having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it. It’s just not a lot of fun actually—decline.”
Ferguson called for what he called “radical” measures. “I can’t emphasize strongly enough the need for radical fiscal reform to restore the incentives for work and remove the incentives for idleness.” He praised “really radical reform of the sort that, for example, Paul Ryan [the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee] has outlined in his wonderful ‘Roadmap’ for radical, root-and-branch reform not only of the tax system but of the entitlement system” and “unleash entrepreneurial innovation.” Otherwise, Ferguson warned: “Do you want to be a kind of implicit part of the European Union? I’d advise you against it.”
This was greeted by hearty applause from a crowd that included Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin. “Depressing, but fantastic,” Streisand told me afterward, rendering her verdict on the session. “So exciting. Wonderful!”
Brolin’s assessment: “Mind-blowing.”
In a session Tuesday morning, Silicon Valley guru Michael Splinter piled on. “From an industry standpoint, it’s below what a lot of people in industry have viewed as the solution to the jobs problem,” Splinter, president of the Applied Materials solar energy company, complained about Obama’s economic performance. He was speaking to an agreeable audience in an interview with Atlantic Media owner David Bradley. “When I talk to venture capitalists, their companies are starting to move their manufacturing operations out of the United States…Our corporate tax rate, on a worldwide competitive basis, is just not competitive. Taiwan is lowering their rate to 20 to 15 percent in order to stay competitive with Singapore. These countries have made it their job to attract industry. You don’t get that sense here in the United States.”
The consensus was similar in an afternoon panel discussion on the decline of the American middle class. “He said jobs were going to be his No. 1 priority—there’s a huge disconnect between Washington and what’s going on out in the country,” nominal Obama supporter Arianna Huffington said. “The president’s economic team kept talking about a ‘cyclical’ problem. Larry Summers said jobs were a lagging economic indicator. All these things are simply wrong. The president put all his trust in the wrong economic team—an economic team that didn’t understand what was happening.”
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
I just found this the other day:
In Masters of Deceit (1958), J. Edgar Hoover defined a “fellow traveler” as one of five types of dangerous subversives.
1. The card-carrying Communist, one who openly admits membership in the Communist party
2. The underground Communist, one who hides his Communist party membership
3. The Communist sympathizer, a potential Communist because of holding Communist views
4. The fellow traveler, someone not a potential Communist but nevertheless who may hold views shared by Communists
5. The dupes, a person who is obviously not a Communist or a potential Communist but whose views may coincide with some of the American Communists. Examples are a prominent religious leader who opposed increased military expenditures and war, or a prominent jurist who opposed red-baiting tactics on civil liberty grounds
I'd have thought Aspenites would regard Obama as too conservative.
“Reality wins elections”
That’s what scares me. As a long time Chicagoan, I’ve seen candidates down 20% the day before elections pull out a miracle win, and its always the incumbent.
He and his team know how to get the illegal vote, they know how to raise the dead from the graves to vote, they know how to get the unions and Panthers out on polling day, and now with executive power, which he has been testing more and more, watch for him to win re-election.
If you thought hanging-chads and pregnant chads were a problem, watch for recounts until your head spins, especially in dem districts that they did not carry.
If that doesn’t work, I’d watch for special executive powers, or some sort of crisis that will keep him in office.
I do not trust these people as far as I can throw a battleship.
That hopey/changey stuff isn’t working out so well for them after all, is it.
Couldn’t see that one coming......../s
THX THX.
So What? He won.
You know what they say, "Tell a lie often enough..."
And it's still a lie.
“Intellectual morons. Anyone who voted for Obama is not smart, in fact, they are incredibly dumb, especially if they are rich. And you can’t get any more stupid than an old white male rich obama voter. Incredibly, I STILL see these fools with obama bumper stickers that say “old white guy for Obama.” LOL!”
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When I read that I got a mental image of a big white Swan being pulled underwater by an alligator and squawking, “But I voted for you”.
“Intellectuals” have no ability to distinguish between what sounds good to them and what will actually work or is even possible. Their motto should be, “Don’t confuse me with facts”. When confronted with facts that conflict with their belief system they don’t change their beliefs, they refuse to recognize the facts like a woman who has just married some rich fool far above her station in life and now refuses to recognize her former sweatshop coworker when she passes her in the street.
I have a good friend who is a physician. He’s actually incredibly smart, probably one of the smartest guys I know. His wife is also a physician, and on their shelf at home, they have a picture of Ronald Reagan, who they both loved. For some reason, this guy convinced himself early on (after reading Obama’s book, probably in 2007) that Obama was a different kind of leader who could solve a lot of problems that existed in politics today. Once he became convinced, there was no arguing with him over it - he firmly supported Obama in the election. I would bet it’s the first time he ever voted for a Democrat for president.
I later got into a discussion (argument?) with him on Facebook, because I posted something about Obama not being the author of his own book, and he jumped in to defend Obama. Occasionally he would also defend O when I posted something negative about Obama’s policies.
I haven’t heard from him in a while, and I respect him too much to ask him if he’s had a change of heart, which I think he might take as me saying “I told you so”. I can’t see how a guy as smart as he is could possibly continue to support Obama.
But there is no doubt he is smart.
“What crazy idiot would call Babs Streisand an “egghead”?”
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I have suspected for years that her head is filled with scrambled eggs, maybe I’m an idiot too.
You should see one old man I know who is nearing ninety, his greatest fear now is that Obama may be reelected. Two years ago all he could talk about was how great it is to have a serious black candidate, he even claimed that Obama would be running eight points higher in the polls if he were a white man and the only reason more people weren’t supporting him was racism. He said a few days ago that he didn’t vote for Obama and when challenged on it (because nobody would believe he voted for McCain) he swore that he didn’t even go to the polls.
This guy used to never miss a chance to badmouth Bush, McCain and any other Republican but now he is strangely silent about all that. He has nothing good to say about Democrats now but up until recently he claimed to be an Independent but promoted the Democrats every time he opened
his mouth.
“But there is no doubt he is smart.”
Not smart enough if he could not see that Obama is a charlatan of the highest order.
Can’t believe that supposedly smart people were taken in by this con-man.
GOOD Points!
You nailed it. It truly is a matter of how smart these idiots believe they are. Well then, if they are supposed to be so damned smart, then how in hell did they ever avoid what they pride themselves for the most, (logical and rational thinkers.) support and help elect a historical Marxist who laid down a trail revealing his true character for several years prior?
Probably the same reason (whatever that reason is) that my brother in law, a very intelligent investor and long-retired manager, supported Obama and believes in the myth of Global Warming despite the strong evidence showing it is a contrived myth.
It's hard to fathom why people who engineered their own success suddenly become collectivists, but I think that part of that reasoning is based on their choices of reading materials and their choice of friends. This particular brother in law despises Christianity, reads the New York Times, and hasn't worked in at least 15 years. Perhaps he's forgotten what it's like to actually have to earn a living in this world.
The problem is that they’re turning on him for not being commie enough...
Thanks for the ping!
Then it's the rich and not-so-rich "old hippies".
Guess liberal "elites" aren't as elite as they used to be... Bill Ayers and other former "domestic terrorists" could pull that off on a college teacher's pay... Maybe the fake Indian came - what was his name?
Conservatives could stand in awe if we weren't falling over laughing at these self appointed 'elites'... look at the mess they've given us. Self appointed idiots.
Predict the future, can you? Very helpful to the left to push negativity. They do it themselves all the time. The left tries to create self-fulfilling prophecies of defeat. Why do you help them?
The Democrats own this disaster and the Republicans are not screaming it loud enough. We knew the trillion dollar stimulus would bring economic ruin but did the Democrats in Washington listen? HELL NO!! They were too eager to pillage what was once a prosperous nation.
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