Wow! I come back from a long weekend in Napa, and the sh*t hits the fan with Santelli. I loved his rant, I agreed with his rant, hell... I rant like him on daily basis, but to think it was planted... just disgusts me.
<em><a href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/rick-santellis-faux-rant/">Rick Santelli?s Planted Rant</a>?
By Barry Ritholtz - February 28th, 2009, 5:47PM
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.
UPDATE: March 1, 2009 5:43am
Wow, talk about link bait ? that was a boatload of comments on a Saturday nite! Doesn?t anyone go out anymore? It must really be a recession . . .
UPDATE 2: March 1, 2009 7:45am
Steve at the Daily Bail writes:
I publish and write the Daily Bail. I have posted a response to the allegations by Playboy magazine made against our site. I am writing you personally so that you know their allegations about me are categorically untrue. It?s unfortunate because I believe that the article did some great investigative work and then at the end they threw me under the bus for no apparent reason. Apparently, the authors just assumed we were part of this conspiracy because of my own personal excitement about the prospect of a mid-summer tea party. They never bothered to contact me for explanation or comment of any sort.
My response to their article is here. Please read it so you know just how wrong they were about me and my politics.
<a href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/03/update-santelli-stares-down-playboy/">Santelli Stares Down Playboy</a>
On Saturday night, I referenced an interesting accusation from Playboy against CNBC: They claimed that the now infamous Santelli rant was a plant. (Rick Santelli?s Planted Rant ?)
As I noted then:
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.
Today, NY Mag reported that Playboy pulled the piece (insert your own bad pun here). The Daily Bail also had a few words to on the subject: We Stand Accused Of Having Fake Boobs. Megan McArdle at The Atlantic had the most persuasive fisking of the original piece I?ve seen.
I emailed Santelli earlier about Playboy dropping the post, but haven?t heard back yet.
The dropping of the accusatory piece suggests at best, the author could not back up their assertions. At worst, their accusations were false. Regardless, as the screen grab above shows, its now down.
The IMs are abuzz that CNBC?s legal team barked at Playboy, threatening litigation and Playboy quickly folded.
Fascinating development . . .</em>
Funny, now it makes some of the past nutters of IHB seem even nuttier than me and no_vas' obsession on the price of milk combined. What BS that this could have been planted. I think Santelli may have just etched a spot on my "list". Sad... truly sad... crackercakes. :down:
