Chances are you will become the conservative movement's new standard-bearer within 48 hours.
Right now, conservatives in general and the GOP in particular are so desperate for some kind of leadership that they are perfectly willing to anoint anyone their new leader. Late last year it was Joe the Plumber. This week, it's Rick Santelli. A month from now it could very well be me. It's a sign of just how rudderless the GOP is these days.
And it's only going to get worse.
Santelli is being hailed by conservatives because he basically threw a fit on national TV. Rob Mentzer couldn't have assessed Santelli's tirade any better when he called it "moronically oversimplified." If you want to see an even worse assessment of the economy, go check out this mind-numbing clip from Glenn Beck that's being hawked by Todd Lohenry. It's almost incomprehensible. Santelli and Beck aren't informing their audiences, they're just venting, and that's all the conservatives seem interested in doing these days.
Check out this "op-ed" by Berry Laker -- or rather, check out as much of it as you can tolerate. Laker's clearly inspired by Santelli to go on his own rant. There's nothing substantive to his lamentations, just a lot of frustration -- and it's hard to blame him for that. There's a complete leadership vacuum within the GOP and he's being obscenely under served by conservative media outlets ... I'd be pissed too.
This will only continue. Marc Ambinder has a pretty sharp assessment of why the White House went after Santelli this week:
The early press reaction asks why the White House would give Santelli free publicity and elevate him to Official status? Easy: they'd rather the opposition be identified with Santelli and stock brokers than with, say, a Joe the Plumber type (but who actually is a plumber and who has serious real reservations about the mortgage plan). Let opponents of the plan get into a tizzy, and let them have Santelli -- whose regular guy creds have to be established -- as their spoxman [sic.].
You can bet that conservatives will be looking for another Santelli in a few weeks, as soon as this one becomes yesterday's news. Maybe it can be you?
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MPOV- Glenn Beck will say ANYTHING outrageous more often than not, uninformed just to keep his ratings up. I could go through a roll of tums just watching him.
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Here some beautiful stuff from Robert Gibbs in a Huggington Post story. And yes, I know Huff is biased. That's why I also read National Review too.
Feel better now?
"Rick Santelli, the CNBC reporter who went into a certifiable rant against the Obama housing plan Thursday, found himself in the White House bullseye 24-hours later: the object of scorn and humorous derision from the president's press secretary Robert Gibbs.
"I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives," Gibbs said during the daily briefing. "But the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, stay in their jobs, pay their bills to send their kids to school, and to hope that they don't get sick or somebody they care for gets sick that sends them into bankruptcy. I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for main street. I think the verdict is in on that."
Ouch. But from there it got almost more personal. Gibbs picked up a hard copy of the housing plan from the briefing room lectern and implored Santelli to "download it, hit print and begin to read it." Gibbs added: "I would be more than happy to have him come here and read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee, decaf." The press in the room laughed...."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/20/gibbs-v-santelli-he-shoul_n_168645.html
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