SubscribeVideos: Is the White House Threatening Rick Santelli?
February 23, 2009 7:00 am
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (smugly) tries to debunk Rick Santelli’s rebel rousing comments seen on CNBC late last week. In the beginning of the clip, he asks
“…I am not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or what kind of house he lives in…”
Was that intended to provide a warning?
Keith Oberman got into the mix as he added Santelli to his “Worlds Worst” segment. The best line from Oberman has to be : When we try to fix what you all did to this country, just sit down and just hush up…”! Well, thanks for the great work, Keith. If blowhard could be a cure for economic ills, you would eradicate the disease. Other than that, sitting and pontificating does not qualify for working to fix the economy. Nice try though!
Here is the first video where Santelli pokes holes in the latest White House initiative to slow down the the increasing level of foreclosures.
Is Gibbs inferring something? Is he saying that any dissension will be met with harsh punishment? You be the judge….
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18 Responses to “Videos: Is the White House Threatening Rick Santelli?”
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No. The talk is about mortgages, housing and the general population. Gibbs is talking about mortgages/housing and his comment I think was intended to say that he doesn't know what Santelli's mortgage situation is, and then goes on to comment about housing in general (as compared to Santelli who Gibbs assumes is in a fairly good housing situation). At least that's my take. No need to read something nefarious into Gibbs' comments. I think some folks may still be a little sensitive after 8 years of White House bullying
Agreed, JHD. Andrew, I think you grossly misinterpreted that statement – his point was as JHD said, questioning Santelli's mortage situation. Also, Obermann does make a good point about carrying out bailouts to the extreme to include corporations and bad banks. I wonder if Santelli went on such a rant again bailing out bad banks?? Perhaps he did, but I have yet to see that clip where he turns to the traders and asks them if they want to bailout corporations who have an 'extra bathroom' in the form of overleveraged gambles at the taxpayer's expense. Talk about 'rewarding bad behavior' Rick!
The best part was the comment at the end of a video that he would buy him a cup of coffee. Decaff.
About time there was a plan that rewarded those of us who have been financially responsible.
Andrew, your friend Dvorak also wrote a column calling out Santelli, saying he's blaming the victim.
http://tinyurl.com/bph6mb
Gibs was being a glib sonofabitch. what the hell does it matter what santelli's housing situation is. santelli was clearly airing his PHILOSOPHICAL difference with obama, namely, responsible people should not be bailing out irresponsible people. obama's so called housing fix is anathema to this.
Has Santelli ranted against the bank bailouts? I'm not saying he hasn't, but nobody seems to be able to answer this question. The mortage bailout pales in comparison to the bank bailouts. My guess is Rick has a few more buddies being directly helped out/in need of a bank bailout then a mortage bailout. I'm sick of bailing the irresponsible parties out, both corporate and invidual, but let's have some perspective on who is getting what….
I was really hoping Gibbs would mock the questioner for even asking about Rick the "infotainment" guy… It's not like it's supposed to be real news.
Gibbs is hilarious! Invite Rick to come read the presidents plan…. I wish we would have been invited to read or even given the time to read the stimulus plan before it was voted on. Wow I love all this bipartisan transparent change we were promised.
That's what Fibbs (not a typo) should have done: "we encourage discussion and differences of opinion and although we respect Mr. Santelli's right to blah blah blah" etc, etc.
Instead this seemed like a carefully thought out and orchestrated attack, complete with visual aids, class warfare (I'm not sure what kind of house he lives in…but most people are trying to work, pay a mortgage etc) and slurs (I thought we got past this derivatives; download a copy, hit print, read it etc etc). (Pay no attention to the fact we promised to let people read things for five days before we enacted them, etc.)
Santelli clearly hit a nerve, why else would Fibbs claim to have watched him for 24 hours? (A fibb, I'm sure: I'd love to see him prove that with some kind of log sheet.) I guess this is what dissent gets you in the Obama White House.
I'm even willing to bet the question was a set up: why else would a reporter toss up a softball that links Santelli to Rush Limbaugh, and therefore pretty much sets the dismissive tone for Fibbs' reply?
I hope Santelli takes him up on the decaf offer. I'd love to see a professional options trader discuss economic policy with a lifetime political hack.
The blame game goes both ways, Fibbs can be accused of class warfare but just as equally so could Santelli. Once again, I pose the question: Has Santelli ranted against the bank bailouts? I'm not saying he hasn't, but nobody seems to be able to answer this question. The mortage bailout pales in comparison to the bank bailouts. My guess is Rick has a few more buddies being directly helped out/in need of a bank bailout then a mortage bailout. I'm sick of bailing the irresponsible parties out, both corporate and invidual, but let's have some perspective on who is getting what….
This is Santelli's reaction to the initial bailout. I'm not sure what he's said since then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=I-1g0OZJ…
I especially love the two guys arguing how we need to pass a bill right away and work out the details later. Kind of like the USA PATRIOT Act.
Rick Santelli has been consistent in his position, whether others agree with it or not. (Notice the DOW was trading above 10,500 when Mr. Blather's youtube was made).
Nobody is threatening Santelli. Give me a break. The Press Secretary is responding to a very popular postion expounded (and highly promoted by CNBC) by Mr. Santelli.
It's about time the great country returned to honest debate.
I'm just sayin',
GaffyEnter text right here!
Thanks alot for the YouTube link. Looks like Rick was pissed off, but balanced about the Republican bailout for the corporations. Compare that against his utter disdain for the Democratic economic stimulus package for us individuals.Enter text right here!
Mr. Gaffy, so does that mean the bank bailout worked? Most of them are still in business, but their stock values have plummeted and the Dow and S&P have gone down considerably with them.
Notice, too, that the Dow first traded above 4000 in 1995 when I was working at Hull Trading and Bill Clinton was in the White House. It touched 11,000 in 1999 or 2000. W has erased just about every other good thing that Clinton did (happened during his time since Republicans never give him credit for anything good). I suppose his credit crisis might as well take the Dow back down to 3,000 or so.
BradD, let me be clear. Santelli has a right to say what he said. The Press Secretary was not threatening Santelli, personally. I hope Obama will return to country to a place where open debate is encouraged.
Bush 44 was an awful president and is responsible for what occurred on his watch. Plus, both Houses of Congress had Republican majorities for six years. Bush could have reversed actions Clinton made.
Clinton was a truly great president — his personal life aside.
Those are my political opinions.
No, the Bush bailouts didn't work — I do not think the Obama Stimulus Plan (read: "entitlement package") will be effective either. I have no confidence in the new Treasury Secretary, either.
I think we will see DOW 6,000 — and lower. It's a terrible shame.
Best wishes,
Gaffy PS: I have been an Independent all my life. I am in favor of America's Middle Class.
Enter text right here!
Glad to hear we agree. I only meant to clarify what you said, not necessarily to disagree.
Was Santelli's rant planted? Not sure if it was, but it makes for an interesting talker. Barry Ritholz highlighted an article by Playboy in his blog, http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santell… :
I was interviewed by several journalists last week about Rick Santelli’s Rant — my exact quote was it had a “Faux” feel to it. (I haven’t seen it in print yet)
What was so odd about this was that Santelli is usually on the ball; we usually agree more often than we disagree. He’s been responsible for some of the best moments on Squawk Box.
But his rant somehow felt wrong. After we’ve pissed through over $7 trillion dollars in Federal bailouts to banks, brokers, automakers, insurers, etc., this was a pittance, the least offensive of all the vast sums of wasted money spent on “losers” to use Santelli’s phrase. It seemed like a whole lot of noise over “just” $75 billion, or 1% of the rest of the total ne’er-do-well bailout monies.
It turns out that there may be more to the story then originally met the eye, according to (yes, really) Playboy magazine.
Excerpt:
“How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
What hasn’t been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli’s “tea party” rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called “astroturfing”) to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that’s because it was.
What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a “Chicago Tea Party” was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.”
What is Playboy’s evidence of this?
“Within hours of Santelli’s rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli’s “tea party” rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg—a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short’s Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first “exposed” a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg’s radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin’s accusation that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” That Rosenberg’s producer owns the “chicagoteaparty.com” site is already weird—but what’s even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg’s launch of the “Obama is a terrorist” campaign. It’s as if they held this “Chicago tea party” campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was.
This looks like more than a coincidence. This is now a very serious charge.
I have no insight as to whether this is true or not — but it certainly deserves a serious response from both Santelli and CNBC. If its false, then they should say so, and demand an apology from Playboy.
But if any of it is true, well then, Santelli may have to fall on his sword, and CNBC may owe the public an apology.
I am VERY curious if there is any truth to this.
My response to their article is here. Please read it so you know just how wrong they were about me and my politics.
I’ve read that Santelli is a GOP plant as well:
“What we discovered is that Santelli’s “rant” was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign.”
http://www.lefthudson.com/2009/03/gop-sleeper-cells-target-obama-santelli.html
“As you read this, Big Business is pouring tens of millions of dollars into their media machines in order to destroy just about every economic campaign promise Obama has made, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal.”