Frank Rich has a great piece today, as he usually does, mentioned in the pundit round-up here. Read it. It's good. But when you finish, check out the readers' comments. I did, and after doing so I felt a bit lost, which is why I'm posting this.
You see, I consider myself a Times reader, and I think that means something, gives a certain dimension to my life, connects me with other folks who I generally share certain values with. It's not a big thing, but a life often turns on little ones, so it is significant.
Yet my Times peoples seem to have drifted into a place where I can't talk to them. If one arranges the reader responses to Frank's essay by "Reader Recommendations", one gets about five pages of constant abuse hurled primarily at the President. He is being pimped by Wall Street, apparently, to dupe all of us into parting with our dough and our jobs to preserve the power and privilege of a few billionaires and zillionaires. Here's a sampling, starting from the "Top Comment" (most recommendations):
"The question now becomes whether Obama himself sold out to Wall Street? Unfortunately, if you look at the facts, the answer is kind of obvious." 155 Recommendations.
"What gives this recession its particluar darkness is the way that Obama heaped trillions in taxpayer money upon his benefactors in the banking establishment, while everyone else had to pay for the bankers misdeeds." 150 Recommendations.
"Perhaps we can get some help from Alan Grayson--the only congressman who appears to have the chutzpah and moxie to figure out how to make this happen! Count out our turncoat President! Unfortunately, he is ONE OF THEM!" 138 Recommendations.
"Face it, Obama is an empty suit. The corporations won." 110 Recommendations.
"Obama is no different than any other politician as far as his friends on Wall Street is concerned...." 71 Recommendations.
"Thank you, Mr. Rich. You nailed it. My only quibble is that you didn't call out President Obama, who has totally betrayed his promises and his change mandate, more directly."
59 Recommendations.
"Our government is the biggest business in town and Barack Obama
is its Ryan Bingham.... He is slick, and has been crafted into a moviie star and he is the perfect messenger to deliver the revenge of wall street to us." 36 Recommendations.
It's worth checking out yourself. Not all comments are in this vein. Some express personal suffering, and others place blame on Washington more generally. But I had to scroll through five pages or so before I found anything remotely positive about Obama or his Administration.
I wrote a long comment of my own, too late to be seen by most, expressing my dismay. To me, trashing Obama in this way only helps the plutocracy, which would love to see Obama abandoned by the progressive left. I read the business press a lot and I know relations between Wall Street and Obama are anything but cozy. They can't wait to see him go. Larry Kudlow on CNBC went so far as to elect himself President for a week or so, in his paranoid delusions of grandeur, and did his show from a faux-Presidential podium. If the folks with the pitchforks turn them all on Obama, Kudlow wins. Goldman Sachs wins. And America loses, again.