Someone, Rick Santelli of CNBC, is trying to speak truth to power. Of course power does not like hearing it. Let's get all the clips together. I dare say there will be more.
His initial outburst, on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange:
For comments, Althouse.
Robert Gibbs does some spinning, in a distressingly condescending tone, for a sympathetic and appreciative White House press corps:
Matt Lauer and Steve Liesman try to trivialize Santelli on the Today show:
Those are from Hot Air, where there are many comments.
And Chris Matthews, who thinks that people are facing "disclosure." (2:36 into the video.) Maybe he is thinking of all those Cabinet nominees who had trouble with disclosure of, say, tax records. Matthews has already disclosed the thrill he gets from hearing Obama speak, so his objectivity is not in question, that is, his bias is on his sleeve. (Or his pants!)
By way of Gateway Pundit, who has comments.
Santelli: "In America, contract law should be sacred." Makes sense to me. Matthews calls him "Ebenezer Scrooge," and says "You're up there with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity." That's enough to make me wonder if Matthews has a contract with MSNBC, or if he does this TV work out of the goodness of his heart and whatever spare change he can find under the sofa cushions in the green room.
I enjoy listening to Santelli's Chicago vowels, as he speaks for truth, justice, and the American way. There's a website promoting the Chicago Tea Party (they plan to throw derivatives into the lake), and a Santelli for Senate campaign button. Roland Burris is looking likely to have a very short Senate term of service. Governor Quinn could establish his independence from the Chicago mob by appointing Santelli. He will not do that, of course, but he could, and it's entertaining to think about.
Update: Roger Kimball has a couple of comments at PJ Media: On the Gibbs remarks, My favorite American; On the Lauer-Liesman interview, Reinventing liberal guilt.
3 comments:
Yeah, isn't the whole "this contract means whatever I feel like" the hallmark of the banana republic?
The whole "Do what you feel is right" (vs. "Respect the law") seems like a dangerous path.
The concept pioneered by Hammurabi and Moses: keep the laws simple and few. Write them down. Display them publicly so that everybody knows what they are. Enforce them even-handedly. No exceptions. Wikipedia on "Rule of Law" is pretty good.
As were your comments on this at Althouse, particularly "I'd say the Founding Fathers worked very hard to limit the powers of the government--in other words, to reduce as far as humanly possible the significance of who was in charge." That was the plan. We've come a long way.
When the laws are so many and so complex that no-one but a specialist knows what they are, full of exceptions and special cases, the purpose of having a "government of laws, not of men" is defeated.
I liked Derbyshire's remark so well that I'll repeat it: "If Congress were just to go on a 12-month vacation, that would be a good thing; but even better would be if they were to spend 12 months doing nothing but repeal bad, stupid laws."
Not even the specialists know what the laws are. Not that I buy this "Whoops, I didn't know I was supposed to pay taxes" business.
But the IRS can't explain the tax law, our reps can't write coherent law of any sort, and nobody could read all the laws that govern them.
It's a bad state.
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