CNBC (2/09) - "Rick Santelli on his CNBC mortgage rant: 'We really, really tapped into a nerve'"

[TomCADem]

I have to say. I am pretty impressed with how CNBC, then Fox News, were able to pretty much take anger at Big Business, and re-direct at Big Government. In hind sight, was the Tea Party movement organic? Or, just the result of billions of dollars in media resources being directed at harnessing voter anger at Big Business, and redirecting into efforts to prevent Big Government from regulating Big Business. Thus, in order to respond to grass roots groundswell of voter anger, you have to be anti-regulation, and pro-business.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/02/rick-santelli-on-his-cnbc-mortgagebailout-rant-we-really-really-tapped-into-a-nerve.html

CNBC's Rick Santelli's self-described rant on TV last week (February 2009), bemoaning that "the government is promoting bad behavior" with President Barack Obama's mortgage bailout plan, clearly resonated with many Americans, made him a viral video star and drew a White House rebuke. (See the video here.)

Only over the weekend, however, was it occurring to him how his newly raised profile -— part Howard Beale, the fictional "mad as hell" anchorman, part Howard Jarvis, the anti-tax champion of fiscal responsibility -- might be parlayed into other opportunities, as discussed in my Feb. 22 Chicago Tribune column.

"I don't think in those terms, but maybe I should now," Santelli, 52, a full-timer on CNBC since 1999 whose current contract is set to run out around the end of the summer, said from his west suburban home. "I have three daughters. I have the whole college thing and whatnot."


Santelli, who doesn't have an agent, said he already has heard from several publishers, a prospect that interests him. (“I’m kind of a closet writer and a closet oil painter,” he said.) And he previously has enjoyed doing talk radio. That said, he noted, "I'm pretty happy with what I do."

[Grand Taurean]

1. The tea parties are just a continuation of

hate radio's brainwashing campaign.

[bluestateguy]

2. Well I hope he's happy

because very few people even qualified for the mortgage plan anyway. It had no impact on anything.

[Journeyman]

3. What's he done since his February 2009 rant? I Google him and that's all that comes up. . .

So no further pontifications from today's "Latter Day Prophet of the People," nor has he published the "book" he was creaming about or shown himself to be a "closet oil painter" with any talent.

Basically, he's a silly blowhard with no substance to contribute.

[w4rma]

4. That's all the robber barons want anyway: A foolish frontman. (nt)