Once again, I’m a bit embarrassed that I can’t think of ANYTHING to disagree with while reading an article by Matt Taibbi. Here’s an excerpt:
If the clichés are true and the presidential race always comes down to which candidate the American people “wants to have a beer with,” how many Americans will choose to sit at the bar with the coiffed Wall Street multimillionaire who fires your sister, unapologetically pays half your tax rate, keeps his money stashed in Cayman Islands partnerships or Swiss accounts in his wife’s name, cheerfully encourages finance-industry bailouts while bashing “entitlements” like Medicare, waves a pom-pom while your kids go fight and die in hell-holes like Afghanistan and Iraq and generally speaking has never even visited the country that most of the rest of us call the United States, except to make sure that it’s paying its bills to him on time? Romney is an almost perfect amalgam of all the great out-of-touch douchebags of our national cinema . . .
The fact that Barack Obama needed a Himalayan mountain range of cash and some rather extreme last-minute incompetence on Romney’s part to pull safely ahead in this race is what really speaks to the brokenness of this system. Bruni of the Times is right that the process scares away qualified candidates who could have given Obama a better run for all that money. But what he misses is that the brutal campaign process, with its two years of nearly constant media abuse and “gotcha” watch-dogging, serves mainly to select out any candidate who is considered anything like a threat to the corrupt political establishment – and that selection process is the only thing that has kept this race close.
Barack Obama is hardly a complete Wall Street stooge. The country’s most powerful bankers seem genuinely to hate his guts, mainly because they’re delusional and are sincerely offended by anyone who dares to even generally criticize them for being greedy or ethically suspect, as Obama has with his occasional broadsides against “fat cat bankers” and so on.
On the other hand, Obama’s policy choices in the last four years have made it impossible for him to run aggressively against the corruption and greed and generally self-obsessed, almost cinematic douchiness that Romney represents.
Wow..you can’t find anything to complain about?
Funny, I have a writer that I like as much as you like this guy..Thomas Sowell.
Not one word against Obama? Only the dufus Mitt Romney?
Nobody reads history anymore…this guy sounds just like all the same stuff I hear..repeated on the radio and TV…both sides have their talking points. Anybody that cannot see the faults in both parties, make me very suspicious of their IQ’s. (Not you Erich)
Obama just lied about the attack in Libya. Blatently. What? That’s okay?
They failed to protect an ambassador…a GAY one at that in a land of luny gay haters. That’s okay?
Uh..Obama…he’s not rich,(he’s making over 5 million a year in his stock dividends…like most of Congress…the offices have great perks) but he sure likes to party with them doesn’t he?
Or…is it only the rich white people that are evil?
Obama’s spends money just like the rich. And spends our taxdollars enough to make the Saudi Kings look like paupers.
And here’s what the new ‘progressive’ do..whatEVER they are guilty of, they accuse the other party of.
For instance: Two bullies on on a playground. One bully knocks the other kid to the ground, the teacher comes out and the bully that knocked the kid to the ground looks at the teacher, points his finger at the kid he just smacked and cries “BULLY! BULLY”
The rich Obama points at Mitt Romney,and cries in his highest Marxist voice ‘RICH MAN” oh…Beyonce..hand me some more of that 5,000 dollar Louis the Fourteenth.
We are RULED by oligarths….are we not? Obama is just a poor boy?
Get real. The office of the Presidency grew with Bush, and now with Obama, has turned into the office of a King. AND they have you all looking at the ‘rich’ man.
Right now, as President…Obama IS the richest man in the world. He is just good at ‘game face’..
Joyanna,
I suggest you take a little time to browse this blog, you’ll notice that many of the core authors here are critical of Obama’s military policies, both foreign and domestic.
On the other hand, Romney has presented himself as egotistical, bordering on egomaniacal. He has openly voiced his loathing of the working poor, and he is evasive and deceitful.
I think its notable that the GOP has embraced a political dogma voting against Obama in particular and Democrats in general, while at the same time avoiding campaigning for GOP candidates on their merits.
Then there is this BS that government should be run as a business. I call it VS because these businessman politicians that claim such seem to run government totally unlike a business. If course there are many business models.
As a businessman, Romney, through Bain capital, used basically two strategies:
1 Leverage a buyout of a publicly traded corporation in a competitive market sector, contract Bain capital as a consulting group, increase the company debt while liquidating assest to pay Bain’s consulting fee, then bankrupt the company allowing federal loan insurance to pay off the loans, and screwing over the employees and suppliers in the deal.
2 Leverage a buyout of a company in a non-competitive field that depends on government contracts. Increase efficiency by firing skilled employees, and restaff with fewer unskilled employees. additionally cut costs by reducing utilities amd instituting very strict chain of command rules on the employees. (BTW, Bain restructuring of rehab centers and remedial “Boot camps” owned and operated by CRC Health, a Bain holding, have resulted in several deaths.)
OF course Romney claims he retired from Bain in 1999, but as of 2011 he still raked in money capital gains from the company.