Stop the Presses! Frank Rich Wonders If Obama is Punking Him!
By Ani on August 10, 2009 at 7:30 PM in Bank Bailouts, Bush/Cheney, Democratic Party, Health Care, New York Times, Obama Administration, Obama's Broken Promises, President Barack Obama, Republican Party, Tim Geithner, Unitary Executive Powers/Signing Statements, Wall Street
Normally I would never quote Frank Rich. Endless copy excoriating Hillary Clinton in favor of Barack Obama during the primaries rendered his columns unreadable. Imagine my surprise to see Mr. Rich put down the Kool-Aid jug for a moment in his NY Times offering, Is Obama Punking Us. Let me start by pointing to Rich’s conclusion – which he buries in the last paragraph of his piece:
The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.
Congratulations, Mr. Rich. With all your education, it has taken you two years longer than most of the people on this site to arrive at this conclusion. Obama is a corporatist. Or, as noted on HillaryIs44, an opportunist. He doesn’t care about the little guy or gal. Further, by his use of signing statements, a disturbing echo of the Bush Administration, he is on the road to becoming a “Unitary Executive.” I wonder if Mr. Rich feels ‘punked’ over that as well.
Let’s take a look at some of Mr. Rich’s observations leading him down disillusionment alley:
… [T]here is real reason for longer-term worry in the form of a persistent, anecdotal drift toward disillusionment among some of the president’s supporters. And not merely those on the left. This concern was perhaps best articulated by an Obama voter, a real estate agent in Virginia, featured on the front page of The Washington Post last week. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been punked.” She cited in particular the billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks that still “act like they’re broke.”
But this mood isn’t just about the banks, Public Enemy No. 1. What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.
…What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.
Come on, Mr. Rich, it’s not such a long walk to realize why Wall Street has been protected with endless bailouts. Mr. Obama got more money from Wall St. than any other candidate. Rich must give Obama credit that he is doing some of the “rigging.” Rich still tries to pretend that Obama just can’t fight ‘the man.’ loathe to acknowledge that Obama is ‘the man.’ Certainly, he was elected by ‘the man.’
Where Rich tries halfheartedly to assail Republicans for disruptive town hall meetings, he must admit Democrats have unclean hands as well:
As Democrats have pointed out, the angry hecklers disrupting town-hall meetings convened by members of Congress are not always ordinary citizens engaging in spontaneous grass-roots protests or even G.O.P. operatives, but proxies for corporate lobbyists. (snip)
But the Democratic members of Congress those hecklers assailed can hardly claim the moral high ground. Their ties to health care interests are merely more discreet and insidious. As Congressional Quarterly reported last week, industry groups contributed almost $1.8 million in the first six months of 2009 alone to the 18 House members of both parties supervising health care reform, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer among them.
Then there are the 52 conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who have balked at the public option for health insurance. Their cash intake from insurers and drug companies outpaces their Democratic peers by an average of 25 percent, according to The Post. And let’s not forget the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which has raked in nearly $500,000 from a single doctor-owned hospital in McAllen, Tex. — the very one that Obama has cited as a symbol of runaway medical costs ever since it was profiled in The New Yorker this spring.
Finally, Rich has a hallelujah moment when he points out that (D) or (R) after one’s name means less and less. It’s the character, stupid!
In this maze of powerful moneyed interests, it’s not clear who any American in either party should or could root for. The bipartisan nature of the beast can be encapsulated by the remarkable progress of Billy Tauzin, the former Louisiana congressman. Tauzin was a founding member of the Blue Dog Democrats in 1994. A year later, he bolted to the Republicans. Now he is chief of PhRMA, the biggest pharmaceutical trade group. In the 2008 campaign, Obama ran a television ad pillorying Tauzin for his role in preventing Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. Last week The Los Angeles Times reported — and The New York Times confirmed — that Tauzin, an active player in White House health care negotiations, had secured a behind-closed-doors flip-flop, enlisting the administration to push for continued protection of drug prices. Now we know why the president has ducked his campaign pledge to broadcast such negotiations on C-Span.
The making of legislative sausage is never pretty. The White House has to give to get. But the cynicism being whipped up among voters is justified. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose chief presidential campaign strategist unapologetically did double duty as a high-powered corporate flack, Obama promised change we could actually believe in.
Rich cannot miss an opportunity to trash Hillary Clinton to the bargain. I was waiting for him to find some inane reason to drag her name into this, even though Obama has proven himself to be in bed with corporate interests ten times over. We’d be lucky to have her as President right now. No matter what, I can assure you he would not feel ‘punked.’
Still, Mr. Rich cannot hide from the truth although he does try to soft pedal it:
[Obama’s] first questionable post-victory step was to assemble an old boys’ club of Robert Rubin protégés and Goldman-Citi alumni as the White House economic team, including a Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who failed in his watchdog role at the New York Fed as Wall Street’s latest bubble first inflated and then burst. The questions about Geithner’s role in adjudicating the subsequent bailouts aren’t going away, and neither is the angry public sense that the fix is still in. We just learned that nine of those bailed-out banks — which in total received $175 billion of taxpayers’ money, but as yet have repaid only $50 billion — are awarding a total of $32.6 billion in bonuses for 2009.
It’s in this context that Obama can’t afford a defeat on health care. A bill will pass in a Democrat-controlled Congress. What matters is what’s in it. The final result will be a CAT scan of those powerful Washington interests he campaigned against, revealing which have been removed from the body politic (or at least reduced) and which continue to metastasize. The Wall Street regulatory reform package Obama pushes through, or doesn’t, may render even more of a verdict on his success in changing the system he sought the White House to reform.
President Obama has shown no signs that he wants corporate control to stop metastasizing. The advisors and moneyed interests with whom he surrounds himself offer ample evidence of that, which even Mr. Rich now admits.
Despite this Administration’s expending significant resources on smoke and mirrors, the realities that Mr. Rich alludes to are getting more and more attention. Change We Can Believe In has now been substituted with The Fix Is In.
Some of us knew that a long time ago.
(Release: November 13)
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Hey Frank….It`s amazing what you see after taking off the rose colored glasses.
Does the fact that he voted “present” a zillion times that he didn’t “accidentally” pull the lever and vote “wrongly” or fail to hold any hearing on the committe he was the “leader” of ring a bell with any of these people ………………..
CAROL HAKA
I think we are seeing that magical tipping point that seems to be the drug of choice for celebrity politicians—that point at which they all over reach and are too full of themselves. Stop and think about the huge political puffing that Obama has done since taking office and how little any part of it has done for the lives of any ordinary American.
1. Financial bailouts: great for the banks, Goldie Socks and Wall St. but it has not created any jobs; it has made credit for small business and individuals expensive and hard to get. It saved ignormous bonuses for hedge fund and derivative traders.
2. Mortgage Relief: It has dragged out endlessly and the more it drags out the fewer people qualify for the relief. Even when relief happens it usually just means that your payments get spread out over 40 years so you can pay less each month and pay for the rest of your life +.
3. Cash for Clunkers: may help immediately but once the program is over will there be any more buyers in the showrooms?
4. Credit Card Reform: Every credit card co. on the planet has increased their credit card rates. I just got a letter from Am Ex today notifying me that the new rate on purchases will be 15% and 25% + late fees if you are late with a payment. Glad it was a card with no balance and I could call and cancel it.
5. Lilly Ledbetter: did that get anyone any thing?
6. Auto bailouts—the only US auto maker doing well is the one that did not take bailout money.
7. The economy: Still reporting declining gdp and job losses now standing at around 7 million.
8. State budgets: mostly tanking. mostly cutting back community service workers like police, fire and whatever.
Now we are engaged in this great debate about health care reform. Do you really wonder that there is an outcry against a government run system? Paul Krugman says, hey, we did not go over the cliff and big government saved us. And he is probably right. But if we are saved and we are dangling over the side hanging on to a tree branch provided to us by brother gov.—is it a surprise that nobody is real excited about brother gov. taking on more of those tree branches on the side of the cliff and extending them to thee, me and 47 million more????? Yes, Frank—HRC looks even better in the rearview mirror.
Reply
What a great line. You are so right. I appreciate your analysis as well.
I’m beginning to wonder if the 2nd week in August will mark the week that the media types, particularly op-ed writers, started to pull back, ever so slightly, distance themselves from the Obama Phenomenon, and begin to muse whether they were had or punked or somehow duped.
Despite all the hysterical headlines about mobs and unAmerican, organized opposition, these fawning worshippers of last year might be getting a wee bit nervous about the general shift in the public’s attitude–the genuine anger that’s brewing throughout the country with faux drum beat of an improving economy, rigged unemployment numbers and gobs of money being spent on policies that are not explained and make no sense.
But this time, we should not forget how easily these people fell into deep adoration, only to slink to the critical whine of “but it’s really not my fault.”
It happened when GW was Prez and it’s inevitable to occur again.
I’m waiting for Maureen Dowd to do a mea culpa. So I can laugh!
I don’t think the day will ever come when the odious Ms. Dowd will do a mea culpa for anything. She will Bash Hillary with her last breath.
I’m convinced Bill must have turn her down …she can’t get over it.
As for Frank Rich, he’s just another independent-thought-challenged koolaid tool.
The media lapdogs are starting to realize that they were never anything more than Barack’s b**ches …something most of us understood all along. Wonder for how long they’ll keep humping Obama’s leg?
Oh catherine, this is vicious. I love it!
Really. WE didn’t get punked, Frank.
YOU did.
You were just too stupid to see it.
actually, the media have been acting like BO’s down-low boyfriends….
I have a faint recollection that a friend of Dowd was a ghost writer of It Takes A Village and that Dowd’s animus stems from that friend not being credited with authorship.
Considering Dowd was recently caught plagiarizing something from a blog writer, she’s one to hold a grudge in that regard.
Considering Dowd is a snarling punster and Dorothy Parker wannabe who adds nothing of true value to political discourse, it’s a wonder she’s considered such a star in the NYT constellation. It shows how dim the sky’s become at that newspaper.
As for Frank Rich, his move from theater critic to political analyst betrays the cynicism of his employer.
Patience says:
“Considering Dowd is a snarling punster and Dorothy Parker wannabe who adds nothing of true value to political discourse, it’s a wonder she’s considered such a star in the NYT constellation. It shows how dim the sky’s become at that newspaper.
“As for Frank Rich, his move from theater critic to political analyst betrays the cynicism of his employer.”
Turn out the lights, let’s go home — nobody can possibly top that!
You, sir or ma’m, are what I would call a first class wordsmith, and I am hopelessly jealous of your writing style.
Beautiful — and I’ll be watching for more of your posts, though that one will be hard to beat!
Thank you very much. This Prof. Emeritus gives you an A+ . . .
LOLing at “Snarling Punster”!!!!
Being named “Maureen DOWD”, no wonder she snarls!
Why would anybody give a ghost writer credit..beats the purpose, right?
It certainly does. Just ask Bill Ayers.
Yeah Rich, you’ve been PUNK’D!
…and still is, because he’s not quite there yet, as he shows. Especially because, not only was Obama the largest receiver from Wall Street, including all those years Senators were getting money.
But, Obama was the HUGEST receiver from the Health Care industry. Yes, but he talks about everyone else. What about Obama’s 19 million dollars LAST YEAR ALONE!
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sectors.php?sector=H
Yes; and you notice, FR did not put those figures in his ‘expose,’ did he, although clearly, he recognizes the relationship between money in / money out. So, is it that BO’s corruption escapes FR’s detection? Or is it that, he sees what withholding the truth has cost him and his employer and now that BO’s former supporters are beginning to see the light, he does not want to be left out in the cold while, at the same time, hedging his bets.
you hit it. Still can’t bring himself to complete clarity, closing his eyes on Barry’s corruption if he sees the same at a fraction of the pay off with the others. But, now that someone else started the honesty game…..
Maybe Frank Rich is waking up after a very long and deep coma. I hope so.
But under BO’s healthcare plans, maybe we’re not allowed to help revive Rich. Maybe we’re only allowed to just give him some pain pills, and lock him in the back bedroom… lol
Let’s see, Mr Rich writes for the NY Times and for some reason he is now just getting the picture. And he is writing about the cynicism of the American public about the fix. How weird…how strange…how ironic. And for some reason, his opinion and his employer have some status and weight in the world of politics? Bizarre.
I have vastly more confidence in the urban legends and gossip that come my way than anything I hear or read from these people. Someone told me 10 yrs ago long before Bob Woodward wrote his book who Deep Throat was and in the same breath said that elements of the CIA were behind JFK’s assasination. The Deep Throat ID trumps 2000 pages of Vincent Bugliosi anyday. I also heard that Bill Clinton, like Obama, was anointed by the power brokers ala CFR or whoever, but, unlike Obama, was too intelligent and too independent, so they tried to bring him down. It might be a little easier to bring down Obama, if necessary, because I hear they (the financiers) have the goods on him already and can let it loose anytime he steps out of line. These ordinary, everyday people I hear this stuff from really have a much better track record than Mr Rich and many of the other media titans.
Someone came up with the notion that there are only 6 degrees of separation between every human on the planet. In that case, it’s easy to see how it might be difficult to keep a secret or hide the truth. You just have to know your sources.
The tide is slowly turning.
This citation from Frank Rich really tickles my funny-bone. His use of the biblical word “smite” points right at the source of his disillusionment: Thee One has let him down in a religious sense. I know he’s being a bit sardonic, but I think there’s genuine bitterness behind the expression: My Lord, My Lord, why hast thou forsaken me? Thee One promised to rout the moneychangers from the temple, and now he’s doing business quite comfortably, thank you. Disillusioned worshippers can become very surly.
Thank you, Ani, for a very satisfying article. Schadenfreude!
That’s a really sharp call, oowawa. Yes, “smite” is a Biblical term and falls right into the Messiah nonsense that was being sold last year.
Poor Rich! He may have to slink back to theater criticism and leave the political analyses to someone else. God is dead. Or at least very human. And not very effective as it turns out.
Guess that’s what happens with false images.
This sentence in itself is quite an admission. But I think most here have known for over a year that the man is just a brand which has been built with media hype and that this brand of a man could never have achieved any of this without the help of powerful and controlling people. When indoctrinated people like this start to see truth, even just a glimpse of truth… then there is hope for us all.
Ah yes, schadenfreude is bliss
I read this stuff by Rich and wonder what was in his head the past few years. But I am pleased that even the staunchest of Obama allies are finally starting to wake up. But only just starting.
He is right, of course, that a D or R doesn’t mean a thing anymore. Just different hats for the same players. And man are we getting played.
So this ISN’T Astroturf?
i think it’s a little too soon to get happy; it was only last week or so that Rich was accusing anybody who opposed Obama of just being mad about having a black president.
Normally I would never quote Frank Rich. Endless copy excoriating Hillary Clinton in favor of Barack Obama during the primaries rendered his columns unreadable.
I read Rich yesterday for the first time since last March because of this topic. His toxic commentary about Hillary was matched only by MODO in its relentless consistency. Now, he suddenly has a “doh!” moment. Do these people do ANY research, or just phone it in from the Hamptons?
Please rescue my comment from the filter Ani. It’s been hungry lately.
Done!
In Frank Rich’s world, everything IS about him.
They still worship at the feet of this Stalinist.
After reading some stories about Obamessiah that one of your posters linked for me, I’m even MORE afraid of this monster.
We all need to fight him: Democrats, Repubs, Libertarians, Independents.
I’d like to kick ALL of the bastards out of office and elect average citizens to run this country.
I actually read this one this morning and what was more interesting were the comments. The cognitive dissonance is really setting in among the dems. The arrogance is dialed down and there are less that are still suffering from the kool-aid hangover that even bothered to weigh in on the article.
Left-wing thinking and messages aren’t standing up to the test with common sense.
Is this not SWEET! Thanks for pointing it out.
I hope we can be gracious in (a very very small beginning of) victory? We told you so? What took you so long?
Never mind. Welcome aboard, Frank.
Frank you’ve been PUNKED! But even worse than that…you PUNKED your readers!
Stop the punkedfest!
In this maze of powerful moneyed interests, it’s not clear who any American in either party should or could root for.
LMAO! Well, darlin’, we could have told you that 2 years ago. Hmmm….. so that whole PUMA (party unity my ass) thing is not looking so crazy after all, now is it, Frankie-boy?
Lord have mercy, these uber-educated Beltway snots are the most ignorant and uninformed people on the planet. They’d buy a lame horse with worn-down teeth from traveling midnight auction, then go write a 3 page editorial about how it was f*cking Secretariat.
And they call US stupid?
“…What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand…”
Am I the only one noticing that these hands feel less and less of a need to be HIDDEN…or discreet….like Henry Paulson (Herman Munster in a 3 pc suit) and his 3 page ransom note of a bailout back in October? 700 billion in small bills… and keep your hands where we can see them…and nobody that matters will get hurt.
Oh, yeah, the arrogance is astounding. At least our corrupt politicians of the past had the decency to be sneaky and circumspect about it. They may have picked our pockets of a few dollars on occasion, but they didn’t waltz into our homes in broad daylight and make off with the stereo, the furniture, and grandma’s silver.
Frank Rich … 5th rate mind & Cliff Notes columnist … what else is there to say?
Folks,
This is required listening.
Mark Levin’s take on the coward Frank Rich and his disgusting comments about Sarah Palin
Enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgC38LHTXQ
URL is broken..it takes you to a back page of U tube
Thanks OMG..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgC38LHTXQ
If that doesn’t work..
Go to youtube and type Mark Levin,Frank Rich and you will get the audio.
It’s fantastic!
Hi Ani. After the first Democratic primary debate, we understood enough about Obama to know he wasn’t prepared to be president. A couple of months into the primary season, we understood he needed to directly answer some questions about his background. Six months into the primary, we understood he had a problem telling the truth and we saw the nasty side of his personality.
Frank Rich and a few others are now taking a second look. It’s hard to believe these “insiders” haven’t known all along who they were dealing with and assuming they did know but went along and promoted him, what has changed now?
Another thing. The information on campaign donations to Obama from Goldman Sachs, AT&T, Verizon, Chase, Exxon Mobile and others was available long before the general election, but MSN went along with his claim that he raised millions in $10-$20 donations.
His arrogance renders him incapable of being properly grateful to the stooges who helped him get elected. I hope the honeymoon is truly over and they finally remember their job is to ask questions.
It befuddles me every time I realize so many people read The New York Times. Why are the writers considered so relevant?
I don’t blame Mr. Rich for his point of view in the past. It’s hard to see the truth with your head buried up Obumble’s a**. After all, it’s dark up there.
The vast majority that voted for this stooge can really claim ignorance because they truly are ignorant. But the likes of Mr. Rich, Maureen Dowd, et. all are just plain stupid. When you willfully close your eyes to the truth, what else can you be?
Nice article, Ani.
Willful ignorance, indeed!
Hey now, that would be news about a conflict of interest. It really can get one’s blood going, to know that while BO Industries Inc. is out there manufacturing socialist sausages, the subsidiaries are lining the pockets of the weasels.
Has the MSM brought this up? Crickets?
What irks me the most is BO spewing the “special interests” crap. At a minimum the elected officials that sit on committees of jurisdiction should not be allowed to take money from those industries
Ani, neat read;Poor Rich.
[...] the title of Frank Rich’s column in the NYT go here for article and please see Ani’s post here for a more in-depth look at Rich’s [...]
Where are the JOBS that fauxbama promised? I guess that was a lie too. Michigan is now 16% unemployment on the record and prolly 20% or more off the record.
One only has to look at the U tube video “invisible” to know how fauxbama governs. I doubt his own Illionis constituency voted for him to be fauxpresident.
I’m voting for Sarah Palin. She’s the only one I trust. I have every reason to believe she will run, bar some freaky condition.
Hillary is finally getting mad huh? She needed to get pissed long ago. Going along to get along is not working. She promised she’d work hard for us. So much for that. I hope she gets pissed off more often. She doesn’t do well as the water bearer and she needs some credit once in a while.
As long as we’re trashing Obama, I’m happy.
However, Obama is both a corporate shill and a dreamy socialist. He wishes for a disastrous govt takeover of healthcare, yet, on the way, bows to his campaign contributors.
The problem is that both Obamas are evil corporate climbers. Bullshit artists extraordinaire.
Where is Hilary when we need her?