Why I'll Sit Out Santelli's Tea Party

By Dave Gonigam

Rick Santelli is a chump.

It pains me to say so. I wanted so much to watch his infamous “Rant” video on CNBC and say, “Hear! Hear!” But I can’t bring myself to do it.

It’s not that I take issue with his opposition to the Obama housing plan: Absolutely, responsible homeowners who kicked in a hefty down payment on a 30-year fixed mortgage should not have to bail out those who bought more house than they could afford.

But I won’t be taking part in any “Chicago Tea Party” he might plan for this summer.

Santelli has walked straight into a trap, one I daresay Obama aides David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel cleverly set.

For all the popular support The Rant has garnered for Santelli, a backlash has developed. “Watching Rick Santelli’s embarrassing diatribe at the expense of the American people made me realize that these Wall Street frat boys still don’t get it,” writes John Amato at the Huffington Post, echoing much of the left blogosphere. “America is sick and tired of the riches they have manipulated out of the system and then be lectured by people who make more money than 100 middle class workers put together.”

That’s pretty hard to respond to — unless you actually opposed the Wall Street bailouts, thus proving your laissez-faire bona fides.

But as near as I can tell, Santelli comes up way short on this measure. Where are the YouTubes of him calling for a taxpayer revolt when the banks were getting bailed out? He’s a colorful enough speaker, he’d surely have eclipsed the guys we know did criticize the bank bailouts like Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, and Marc Faber.

And so, Santelli finds himself boxed in — billions for bankers, but not one cent for homeowners. That’s an impossible box to get out of. Then Chris Matthews gets Santelli to fess up he voted for McCain (who like Obama, voted for TARP I). So The Rant now looks less like a courageous stand for personal responsibility and more like a petty partisan thing, red meat for the red states.

That’s exactly how the White House planned it. Obama didn’t announce his housing program until more than a week after Tim Geithner released the TARP II turkey. The banksters got theirs first. Anyone who then turned around and opposed help for “the little people” without having first opposed help for the big boyz could be portrayed as cruel and heartless. (Never mind that by cutting monthly payments, all the housing plan will accomplish is putting homeowners in further hock to their lenders. So the banksters get theirs on this one too. They always do.)

“Chicago Tea Party”? Please. Santelli insults the memory of Samuel Adams.

Comments

[T.J. Brown:]

"where are the You Tubes of Rick Santelli criticizing the bailout?"

Hmm, I could go snarky on you and give you this:

tinyurl.com/c4kgw8

Or I could be nice and give you this:
www.youtube.com/watch?...

Yeah, Rick Santelli seems very much in favor of TARP here.

Feb 23 03:05 PM

[User 327005:]

Never did Santelli call for a bailout of bankers.

Lying makes a man look ugly, Dave Gonigam and you're homely.

Feb 23 03:25 PM

[User 362775:]

You may think he is late to 'the party', but then, so are the majority of Americans who were left gasping for air when their government systematically switched from a representative democracy to a Socialist Animal Farm in a matter of days after Obama took office. You'll forgive us poor schmucks out here in the working world for routinely doing the right thing only to be wake up one morning certain they must be in some kind of Twilight Zone. If Santelli has wakened a giant, I want to be in on THAT party.

Feb 23 03:32 PM

[rucky:]

Torches and Pitchforks aside, what's his plan? Let God - I mean the "free market" - sort it out? At what cost? Where's the recovery going to come from?

I don't think anybody's really enthusiastic about all of these rescues, but I'm not hearing anything constructive from the opposition, either.


On Feb 23 02:47 PM Equity Val wrote:

> You clearly don't follow his comments on CNBC very closely. He has
> opined against almost every government intervention in the market
> since the credit crisis began. His mantra was that we needed to
> let the market find the price of assets and that we need to acknowledge
> insolvency, whether that was in financial institutions or individual
> mortgage borrowers, and take the pain that comes with that. He is
> not some plutocrat saying bail me out and tough luck for everyone
> else. Do some research rather than posting this drivel and save
> us all some wasted attention.

Feb 23 03:37 PM

[Weston:]

Ah I like rick, maybe a little loud and "Aggressive" but hes a straight shooter. And if we bailout people how will they ever learn to run a company probable or even a country for that matter.

Oh well we are screwed no matter what now

Feb 23 03:58 PM

[PassingBy55:]

BLINDSIDED!

do some research before you write. I was a Huff Post reader until the NY Post cartoon and the lampooning of Santelli.

The left wing has lost its way. Entitlement driven, ego serving populist complaints are not going to do anything to help anyone.


On Feb 23 03:05 PM T.J. Brown wrote:

> "where are the You Tubes of Rick Santelli criticizing the bailout?"
>
>
> Hmm, I could go snarky on you and give you this:
>
> tinyurl.com/c4kgw8
>
> Or I could be nice and give you this:
> www.youtube.com/watch?...
>
> Yeah, Rick Santelli seems very much in favor of TARP here.

Feb 23 03:58 PM

[Former Demo...:]

Socialism here we come! Nationalize the banks! Nationalize the auto industry! Nationalize the mortgage industry! Nationalize the Housing Industry! Nationalize Medical Care! The government including members of Congress, Fed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the PRIMARY cause of our economic problems. Now we need more Government so we can have MORE problems and more mismanagement. Change the mark to market on the toxic assets and stop this fiasco! Stop the cram down and the voiding of mortgage contracts. Make the housing crooks take responsibility! Take us back to FREE Enterprise! Help!

Feb 23 04:17 PM

[storm999:]

The $75 billion mortgage aid is a bailout, too. It is targeted at Fannie Mae/ Freddie Mac borrowers who have home that are worth less than their mortgages. Rather than have the borrowers walk and cause further price destruction. The government is in effect subsidizing mortgage principal buy-downs. It helps borrowers but it helps the GSes and bank just as much.

Feb 23 04:31 PM

[storm999:]

You are way off base. So far they have been avoiding nationalizing the banks; the autos companies are receiving loans, not being nationalized and medicare is a government program it can't nationalized.

You are also wrong that the primary cause of the credit problem is government and Fannie/Freddie. If you were right then the there wouldn't be a global credit crisis, global real estate devaluation etc. Behind all of this mess is the Asian "savings glut", and a shadow banking system which allowed massive leverage and discounted risk. That's it in a nutshell.

Feb 23 04:41 PM

[frito:]

Yeah, as the link from T.J. Brown clearly shows, (you must have been really lazy not to have been able to find that), he was very much against the 1st one.

So will it be a retraction, or an apology?

You sound like all the other so called "liberal" bloggers and columnists that don't have a clue.

Feb 23 05:57 PM

[ussa serf:]

Maybe Dave is right. Obama and his minions will have all their cameras pointed at the tea party protesters (Daley has a camera on every corner). They'll find out their identities put them on an enemies list and refer them to the IRS.

Welcome to the cash economy, gold in your safe.

Feb 23 06:36 PM

[chopshop:]

Santilli might be defending "self" by ranting against others. It seems he jumped on the bandwagon to polarizing America.
If a CEO would rant he would take a bad opinion of that. People in the public eye who rant should consider other channels to advance their opinions rather than to rant in public, write a column for seeking alpha or a book or something Santilli!

Feb 23 09:32 PM

[fxhunter:]

What a smug nitwit this author is. As others pointed out, Dave didn't do his homework before writing this. Tisk, tisk. There are youtubes of Santelli advocating his free market principles and clearly stating his stance against Tarp etc. The author clearly has no understanding of who Rick is and what he stands for. Dave incorrectly categorizes Santelli with the crooked Wall St fat cat crowd because he is at the CME. No, your talking about the Jon Thain's of the world, the Angelo Mozillos, the real scums that got away with white collar crimes ( and have yet to be prosecuted, I might add).

Your article is way off base. To quote Gibbs, you really don't know what your talking about Dave.

Feb 24 12:28 AM

[ils:]

hey dave, you are a talentless hack. whoever hired you at agora is a dumbass

Feb 24 02:58 AM

[Blueboy:]

This article is so full of inaccuracies that it pains me to have to waste time responding to it. But Rick Santelli has been one of the very few broadcasters to have "told it like it is" from day one, rather than pandering to the needs of advertisers and sponsors. And for that reason alone, I feel obliged to defend his record throughout this crisis. He has consistently called for nature to be allowed to take its course and not once has he praised or encouraged government intervention.

Of course, if you prefer, we could all jump on the latest bandwagon, which is to blame the ongoing crisis on the reporting of the truth. We could pretend that things are not that bad and it's only the doom-merchants who are creating this recession. But that would be like sticking our collective heads in the sand and hoping that everything is fine again once we come up for air.

Dave Gonigam - you should take a long look in the mirror and figure out whether you want to be a journalist who reports the truth or a hack who will write anything to get himself a headline. But never publicly discredit somebody who has been one of the few people to stand up and tell the truth....especially when you have not done your own research first.

Feb 24 10:09 AM

[friar tuck:]

all you filthy rich fat cats better watch out. robin hood and his merry men are going to get your riches. ha ha ha ha ha. dow goes to 900 by the end of the year. isn't short selling a wonderfully shrewd way to make money. oh and by the way, rick santilli voted for a guy who was raised as a military brat who never did a lick of work in his life. his father( an admiral) pulled strings and got him into the naval academy where he gravited to the bottom of his class. vietnam allowed him to get into flight school and probably some more strings pulled by dad, he spent his time in the navy learning how to bail out of jets as he crashed 3 or 4 of them, costing taxpayers millions. he, again bails out over nam and spent his hitch at the hanoi hilton while thousands of gis were getting bagged up and sent home. just like george bush before him, a coward who basically took joy rides in super sonic jets over the gulf of mexico instead of the gulf of tonkin. all orchestrated by daddy. the republicans have done nothing to make this a fair and just country for all. they have coddled the rich and killed anybody who got in their way. now it's all coming back to haunt them. i voted for barack obama because he is a black man. i am waiting to see if he turns out to be a house negroe or a field negroe. i would have liked to vote for malcom x but barack is a good start. at least i know i did not vote for a complete idiot like santilli did. rick santilli has conived himself a reputation and comes off as being a smart man but if one looks deeper with an open mind rick santilli proves himself to be nothing but a shrewd man. he's calling for a tea party but i see a snake oil party.

Feb 24 10:56 AM

[DuffBeer:]

TJ Brown as someone who is from Chicago you know how Obama rose to the title of Messiah.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

This guy is slick and very smooth.You watched from the north I from the south side.
Was it your idea to give away a free Barrack Obama picture shopping bag with a new Chicago Tribune subscription.
All you Lefty's please continue your total support > After tonight you will have BHO approval rating up over 1 trillion %

If you look back Obama is doing exactly what he siad he was going to do during his 12 or 16 years of campaining for the presidency and Change.
For me I rather have a beer with Rick then drink your stuff.
Cheers ,DuffBeer

Feb 24 11:05 AM

[paul:]

You missed it completely. Santelli struck a cord with most people. All the government manipulation in the world will still lead to "Unintended Consequences" which will make all of the intentions backfire.

Feb 25 04:04 PM

[voidjudgment:]

Over the bank bailout, Santelli is nowhere near calling for a "Tea Party!" First he says "I'm not making a judgment call," then he says "I agree something needs to be done." His and others' credibility is shot for them to be making a big deal out of the current stimulus package without having protested the first bail-outs. If they had called for "Tea Party" on the first ones then, this one might have tipped the scale for mobilized action; as it is, the chances of mounting a successful movement are gone.


On Feb 23 03:58 PM PassingBy55 wrote:

> BLINDSIDED!
>
> do some research before you write. I was a Huff Post reader until
> the NY Post cartoon and the lampooning of Santelli.
>
> The left wing has lost its way. Entitlement driven, ego serving
> populist complaints are not going to do anything to help anyone.
>

Mar 03 01:23 PM

[Osternoggles:]

Many people are being forced to pay more money in taxes. Regrettably average people are having their pockets stretched even thinner than they where during the Bush administration. In spite of this you all must see these tax increases as what they are, a necessary evil. Supporters of the recent Tea Party protests overlook the concept of “Greater Good.” A little bit of money from each person will create the means to prevent our country from falling to ruin. When you think about it is that $100 extra you had to pay really worth all that much if the bank that held all of your money failed? Instead of putting your efforts towards fighting the tax increases that already passed, we all need to put our energy into making sure those taxes are spent the right way, to strengthen our countries infrastructure, renovate our public education system, and reduce our dependence on any foreign products. If we can ensure that our money is not being spent in wasteful earmarks and “pet pork projects” as Rip of Ruskin called them than we can help our country return to prosperity.

Apr 26 10:54 PM