Posted on 03/01/2009 10:57:34 AM PST by sbark
I was interviewed by several journalists last week about Rick Santelli’s Rant — my exact quote was it had a “Faux” feel to it. (I haven’t seen it in print yet)
What was so odd about this was that Santelli is usually on the ball; we usually agree more often than we disagree. He’s been responsible for some of the best moments on Squawk Box.
But his rant somehow felt wrong. After we’ve pissed through over $7 trillion dollars in Federal bailouts to banks, brokers, automakers, insurers, etc., this was a pittance, the least offensive of all the vast sums of wasted money spent on “losers” to use Santelli’s phrase. It seemed like a whole lot of noise over “just” $75 billion, or 1% of the rest of the total ne’er-do-well bailout monies.
It turns out that there may be more to the story then originally met the eye, according to (yes, really) Playboy magazine.
(Excerpt) Read more at ritholtz.com ...
“How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was.
What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.”
What is Playboy’s evidence of this? more at link
...if only they’d investigate Obama and his cabinent like this....
And this is bad because...?
Sheesh!
If Obama/Reid/Pelosie really wanted to avert a deep recession then they would have:
1) decreased income tases
2) decreased fuel taxes
3) increased domestic drilling
4) increased refining capacity
5) decrease capital gains taxes to:
a. 0% for two years
b. 5% for two years
c. 10% for two years
d 15% for two year
6) decrease depreciation from 30 years to 15 years.
Instead of growing the economy the grew the government that produces NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish this were true. Here I though Conservatives were really lacking in organization.
This guy must be one of those who buys Playboy “for the articles.” Didn’t I just read Playboy is up for sale? Who is using who? It sounds to me that this “article” is a “plant.”
The story got legs because Matt Drudge gave it prominent play, and people responded.
The John Birch Society is “NOTORIOUS”???
Mr. Ritholtz is such an idiot!
I don't think so.
If those “evil” conservative Koch family and “billionaire funders” of conservative causes and “right wing think tanks” is behind all this, they're not doing a very good job of it.
From my perspective the country, culture and world are under the total sway, control and influence of the Dim Dhims, leftists, socialists, communists and Islamofascists.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
But I don't think so.
I truly wish there really were a vast right wing conspiracy. I'd like to send in a contribution to the cause.
Yep, must be the latter!
This is false surprise by Barry Ritholtz.
There is nothing surprising that active anti-liberals would coalesce around Santelli’s remarks. Heck, they were posted here on FR within an hour.
The links mean nothing. If Democrat operatives in Florida coincidentally had a tape recorder and scanner handy to document Newt Gingrich’s mobile phone calls and that amounted to nothing, so does this.
The writing style of this junk is to ask a question that supposedly raises doubt. There are no answers just questions. It’s a joke.
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Funny, every time I see the Acting President Obama, I get the same feeling. President for stupid people.
Unlike Harriet-the-homeless-real-estate-investor-Hughes "spontaneous" townhall speaker.
I particularly liked the Obama-Oprah Shows.
The left never changes what they say and do.
Raise taxes, fund socialism and gun control. It’s all they know.
What I did see was sincere frustration with this latest in a series of half-baked steps to combat the natural working of Markets by those who just do not understand or respect Markets.
IMO This article is just a crock and, ironically, it is exactly what it is accusing Santelli of, disinformation.
Lately,the people at CNBC act like they’re at a wake. I believe that they feel that the Stock market is finished as
we knew it.
Like Obama...hmmm?
Fact is, the left fears the truth and they want to suprress it. Tea Parties are just the beginning. As the impact of Obama's marxist agenda further erodes and dismantles the free market...watch for more, Ritholtz, a lot more.
Leading to a turnaround starting in 2010 and a whole sale repudiation of these Obamanation quislings in 2012.
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IN HIS OWN WORDS
NOW WE KNOW WHAT A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER DOES
OBAMA, THE STOCK MARKET, AND ENERGY
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S UPBRINGING
BTW, it was not a ‘Rant’. It was a heated response to this madness though.
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