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[Ya-ta Boy]

There's kind of an interesting exchange going on between a reporter named Rick Santelli and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

For the first part, go here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19083.html

BUT scroll down to the bottom right hand side for a video about the intial report, then go back up to the top for Gibbs' response.

After that, go to this link for Kudlow's interview with Santelli where he goes even further:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/02/rick_santelli_responds_to_gibbs.html

[mises]

I was going to post about that... Seems he's trying to be Joe The Announcer. The "media" is now positioning him as a folk-hero opponent of the administration.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Thomas Jefferson's dad is not the only one who didn't spank his kid enough. It looks to me like Santelli and Kudlow are milking this thing in hopes of a raise at work.

[Gopher]

Many in the media remain elitists and not only approach "the people in power" with hostility but they also seem to believe they are their superiors intellectually and even politically (they command ratings, thus "the people").

R. Gibbs's completely understandable response to R. Santelli only excited the latter. "Does he not know who I am?" I imagine Santelli asked himself at one point...

Typical. However, probably a small, one-day-item news story. In the meantime, Santelli and his colleagues will likely milk it for all they can get. You gotta love it when the media begin interviewing themselves.

[mises]

In the first video he was standing with a group of equity traders on an institutional trading floor, and started rambling about this and that. The traders shouting in agreement etc. He said "this is America" or "these guys are America".. Now, I know something about that setting.. Those dudes are a far, far distance removed from Joe 6pack. It was absurd to watch.

And then for Kudlow to make it look like a freedom of the press issue. The fact that he, the cantankerous -always wrong- old fart still has a tv show after 4 years of being 180 degrees off, is solid evidence that there is little holding the "media" back.

I guess the financial press has their Joe the Plumber now.

[Ya-ta Boy]

This thing may be bigger than I initially thought:

The clip�soon known as the Santelli Rant�became an instant overhyped sensation. The Drudge Report linked to it, and NBC put it into heavy rotation. Santelli was the top story on the NBC Nightly News, and he was replayed or interviewed across NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC. (He may also have been on the CCTV in Rockefeller Center. These network executives are no dummies. As of Friday afternoon, the clip had been viewed 1,277,015 times on CNBC.com, six times as often as the next most-viewed clip.)...

It's definitely not White House policy to elevate cable talking heads. But Gibbs had to push back against the blanket coverage Santelli was getting. He did so pointedly and at length.

Rant for Rant:
Obama's populist smackdown over his housing plan.

http://www.slate.com/id/2211808/

[man_of_words]

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/13/robert_kuttner_and_michael_hudson_on

This is an interesting critical look at the stimulus package...

[Ya-ta Boy]

[mises]

Not so spontaneous after all.

http://www.playboy.com/blog/2009/02/backstabber.html

[Ya-ta Boy]

Yes, it is interesting, although it's a bit too conspiracyish for my taste. (That's not to say it might not be true.)

It's the second time today I've run across The John Birch Society in an unexpected place. Maybe the Birchers are making a comeback.

This morning a saw a blog that reported attendance numbers for the tea parties. With Obama at nearly 70%, you wouldn't expect mass crowds. Here is what the blogger reported:

"Is this really a revolt?

About 200 people showed up at the Chicago tea party...
Nashville did a little better. There, an estimated 600 Tenneseeans turned out...
In North Carolina, they had about 300 people show up...
Barely 300 committed conservatives showed up across from the White House to protest Obama�s policies..."

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2009/02/27/weak-tea/

I think I saw on another blog that there were 1,500 or so in Kansas City or St. Louis or somewhere. Denver, maybe?

[mises]

I don't know.. I'm generally a cynical or strongly skeptical person.

George W. Bush, for example. Dad was CIA director, GWB went to private boarding schools in Mass (I think), born and raised in Conn. Yale, then Harvard for an MBA. Then, one day, he's "clearing brush" at his ranch in Texas (which he sold, and he then moved to very posh Houston 'burbs upon ending his political career). He wasn't an everyman, Joe Sixpack American. He was an extremely privileged white dude from the North East who came from an extremely elite family, got an extremely elite education and lived the life of an extremely elite individual.

Everything is constructed in politics. I'm sure Obama was encouraged to have a beer while watching the basketball game.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[mises]

I know.. I'm playing the role of captain obvious today.

But the new 'tea party' thing just doesn't seem spontaneous to me.

[Ya-ta Boy]

My disappointment with the tea party thing came in Pittsburg. The anti-tax crowd was supposed to throw tea bags--yes, actual real live tea bags--into the Ohio River. I was hoping a crowd of crazed tree huggers would attack them for polluting the river and endangering the lives of fish.

I would pay to see something like that.

[mises]

Chicagoteaparty.com was registered as a website in August, 2008. ha.

http://www.businessinsider.com/plantelli-was-santellis-rant-staged-2009-3
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Tea_Party_protests_sees_as_corporate_0301.html