This three page open letter has to be read to be believed. It's written by Leon Cooperman, ex Goldman Sachs bigwig and founder of Omega Advisors, a $5.4 billion hedge fund. He simply embarrasses himself with this rant, and seems more interested in complaining about the points Obama is making that aren't in his personal economic interests than in providing any real solutions to our problems...
Cooperman's first whining point....
(but) what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare".
"So many"? Who, may I ask, is Cooperman referring to when he says this? Why, of course, corporatist Republicans who don't want to pay more taxes! It's easy for Cooperman to cite these people who support people like Cooperman, who is reported to be worth $1.8 billion.
It gets better. He supports his whiny point with...
What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.
Umm, what tonal qualities in Obama's speeches or press conferences have sounded so divisive and polarizing? He may not like to hear it, but Cooperman's sensitivity to Obama's call for shared sacrifice and for millionaires and billionaires to "pay their fair share" is overwhelmingly supported by the public, including by a large block of rank-and-file Republicans. Where, in Obama's call for tax fairness, has his tone been so toxic? I'd really like for Cooperman to cite specifics, but he doesn't.
However, Cooperman insists that...
it is an approach to governing that owes more to desperate demagoguery than your Administration should feel comfortable with.
Now, Mr. Cooperman does not state where Obama is being a demagogue by advocating a tax policy change, but he sure sounds like a demagogue himself by charging the President of this infraction.
I'd suppose when a policy prescription is in alignment with his self-interest, he'd call it a "strong use of the bully pulpit" to advance changes to public policy. But, when it hurts in the bank account, it's suddenly "desperate demagoguery".
We are supposesd to have sympathy, though, for Mr. Cooperman. After all, he is the son of a plumber from the South Bronx as he details in fine detail in a following paragraph. When someone comes from working class roots, makes it big, and gives away large sums to charity (as Cooperman brags about), I guess it allows him to complain about "class warfare" and get away with it.
To be fair, Mr. Cooperman isn't simply complaining to Obama. He has a suggestion...
you should endeavor to rise above the partisan fray and raise the level of discourse to one that is both more civil and more conciliatory, that seeks collaboration over confrontation. That is what "leading by example" means to most people.
Raise the level of discourse? Be more civil? WHAT is he talking about??? It sure would be nice to see specific examples or quotes that offended Mr. Cooperman, because he doesn't give them. Instead, he immediately lectures Obama that...
Capitalism is not the source of our problems, as an economy or as a society, and capitalists are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be.
Did Obama EVER say capitalism IS the source our our problems? What is Mr. Cooperman implying here? Could it be that he fears the President is a socialist? Just wondering where that came from. But maybe we have a clue....he then says...
It is also a naked, political pander to some of the basest human emotions - a strategy, as history teaches, that never ends well for anyone but totalitarians and anarchists.
So Obama is really a totalitarian and anarchist sympathizer! Must be, since Cooperman warned him that his rhetoric gives comfort to such riff-raff.
You get the idea, now. Cooperman is disgruntled because he's a hedge fund manager, and has to vent. After all, Obama used the incendiary rhetoric that hedge fund managers need to pay taxes at the rate their secretaries are paying, something so controversial that Warren Buffett has said virtually the same thing!
Leon Cooperman is a member of the 1% who is scared. So scared that he dared to publish a letter to the White House for public consumption. What he doesn't realize is that his very words will further enrage the 99% who can see all too clearly just how out of touch and self-interested such people are on Wall Street. He really is just hurting his own cause!