by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Fool me once, the saying goes, shame on you. Fool me again --- you know the rest. But what do we call it when Obama supporters willingly deceive themselves about what side of the haves vs have-nots struggle their president is on? And if reports are true that the president has scarcely bothered to call or speak to leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus or even of Democrats in the Congress in months, what does that say about who owns who?
Obama 2012 Smacks Down Jim Clyburn For Criticizing Bain & Vampire Equity Firms, Obama Supporters Pretend Not to Notice by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon What's more disgusting? An original act of cynical hypocrisy, like President Barack Obama's hollow criticisms of Mitt Romney's parasitic Bain Capital, while his own campaign and administration are honeycombed with execs and consultants from similar and even bigger bloodsuckers like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, or the craven chorus of diehard Obama supporters insisting that we look the other way every time their president and his team show what side they're really on?
When Newark mayor and Obama campaign surrogate Corey Booker on Meet The Press defended the way so-called “private equity” firms like Bain Capital make their money he was defending his own, and the president's friends on Wall Street who do the same thing Bain Capital does, and who make both their careers and the careers of an entire generation of Democratic party politicians possible.
So how did the chorus of Obama supporters respond? For a solid week Obama fans, most of them avid supporters of Booker until then, fell all over each other denouncing Corey for not representing their president, or more accurately their idea of this president. Somebody should have noticed that in all that time, nobody from the White House or the Obama campaign denounced Corey Booker.
But when South Carolina's Jim Clyburn accurately described Bain Capital's technique as enriching its partners by “raping” companies they acquired the Obama campaign wasted no time in publicly smacking Clyburn down. Barack Obama and his campaign know that if public anger is focused at the vampire capital industry rather than just at Romney's Bain Capital alone, it's bad news for them and their campaign contributors as well. So their self-interested hypocrisy is understandable, though not excusable.
Less understandable, and less excusable was the sheeplike reaction of Obama fans. The week before they flooded online forums, call-in shows, email lists and the like with screeds on how Booker's views didn't represent their president. Instead of getting behind their imaginary President Obama --- the one who opposes vampire capital, and lining up with Rep. Clyburn, an avid supporter of the president himself, Obama supporters pretended to ignore Clyburn, and also looked away in silence as the Obama campaign publicly smacked him down.
Denial is potent and deceit is powerful. Nobody likes to admit being deceived, or being used to help deceive others. But with trillions of dollars and power on the line, or sometimes just the illusion of being near that power, deceit and denial are everyday facts of American political life, especially among supporters of our First Black President.
Hail to the Chief.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.
Dr. Nicole Price is the Forbes Books author of Spark The Heart: Engineering Empathy In Your Organization.
Nick Encalada-Malinowski is Director of the Civil Rights Union campaign at Vocal-NY.
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