Alabama's own Robert Gibbs -- currently White House Press Secretary -- makes it plain that Rick Santelli's rant about the housing plan (see it below the fold) is just plain wrong. Imagine that. A cable news guy runs off at the mouth about something he hasn't read and gets it wrong? Not exactly breaking news, is it?
The nice thing about having a Southerner as White House spokesperson is how easily that friendly, mellow drawl can transition from offering to buy the guy a cup of coffee to essentially saying Santelli doesn't know Jack @#%.The knife is inserted so smoothly the victim doesn't know he's dead until he hits the floor.
I've watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives. But the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their job, pay their bills, send their kids to school, and to hope they don't get sick or that somebody they care for gets sick and sends them into bankruptcy.
I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that.
This plan helps those who have acted responsibly, played by the rules and made their mortgage payments. This will help people who aren't in trouble yet keep from getting in trouble. You can't stay in this program unless you continue to make mortgage payments. ... Here's what this plan won't do: It won't help somebody trying to flip a house. It won't bail out an investor looking to make a quick buck. It won't help speculators that were betting on a risky market. And it is not going to help a lender who knowingly made a bad loan. It is not going to help somebody who has long ago known they were in a house they couldn't afford.
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I would encourage him to read the President's plan. And understand that it will help millions of people, many of whom he knows. I would be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee. Decaf. (laughter)
[brandishing the plan...] This is a copy of the president's home affordability plan. It's available on the Whitehouse website. I would encourage him to download it, hit print, and begin to read it.
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But I also think it's tremendously important that for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they're talking about. I feel assured that Mr. Santelli doesn't know what he's talking about.
Santelli is now saying it was just a "philosophical rant," perhaps to excuse the fact that it wasn't fact based.
After watching the above, I first had to check my calendar. Somehow I felt I traveled back in time to the early 1970s to witness first hand Richard Nixon's "northern strategy," his pursuit of white ethnic voters who were so deeply disaffected over Great Society programs ranging from desegregation (remember the Boston busing madness?) to affirmative action among others that they would desert the Democratic Party becoming "Nixon's silent majority" and "Reagan Democrats". As historian Joe Merton noted "Nixon possessed a keen awareness of the `ethnic revival' of the early 1970s and engaged with specifically ethnic issues such as parochial school aid and ethnic heritage studies, and also shaped much of his early substantive policy to appeal to ethnics, culminating in the publication of the Rosow Report on blue-collar workers in May 1970."
Rick Santelli is heir to this legacy laced with racist overtones. Note the promo before the rant in the video link at CNBC. CNBC has an upcoming special entitled The Rise of America's New Black Overclass. Fear mongering, it's worked before so let's try it again. It's back to the 1970s for the GOP and their rabid white ethnics.
Heaven forbid some of those people might benefit from this plan.
