The Village press decides that the only honest men in politics are the Kochs
by digby
I wrote about the Village media today. And it was fun:
Yesterday a gimlet-eyed Ken Vogel of Politico took a deep sniff of snuff, shook out his lace cuffs and declared to no one in particular that the Democratic Party’s wealthy benefactors are all hypocrites and liars. Then he sighed dramatically, flounced over to a gilded Louis the XIV loveseat and threw himself upon it in despair. Why oh why can no one see the truth as only he can? The burden of such knowledge is exhausting.
Well, perhaps he didn’t flounce. But he did write a very smug, self-serving piece about the hypocrisy of wealthy donors in the Democratic Party. He contends they are not only no better than the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson but are actually worse because they act “morally superior,” which obviously annoys him to no end. Sure, they may be backing candidates who will vote to raise their personal taxes and many of their preferred policies are bound to put a crimp in their profits. But that doesn’t mean they are any better than those nice $100 billion men the Koch brothers who also have at least one issue that might cost them the equivalent of pocket change: ethanol subsidies. And of course there’s that paragon of religious virtue Sheldon Adelson, whose only reason for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on politics is his supposedly overriding concern for Israel. Evidently, Vogel forgot to Google his name or he would have been reminded of this other little issue of intense concern:
“I am willing to spend whatever it takes,” Adelson said in his first interview since The Washington Post revealed that he had hired an army of lawyers and lobbyists to try to convince Congress to ban online gambling. Read on ...
I'm quite sure that wealthy liberal donors are not always your salt-o-the-earth defenders of the down-trodden. I noted that Vogel failed to mention the Wall St connection that overwhelms both parties and the fear of populism that permeates the upper 1% regardless of ideology. But he and other Villagers seem to think that it's hypocritical for liberals to put money into politics when they are trying to get money out of politics and that's just silly. They are legitimately working against their self-interest in a number of different ways and I'm sure it's not their first choice to have to spend huge amounts of money to get it accomplished but they're doing it anyway. Somehow that shows they have bad character. Or something.
On the other hand, ogel claims that the Kochs are true believers which means that if everything they believe in happens to make them even more vastly wealthy, it's a sign of their consistency. How convenient for them.
Basically I think it just annoyed Vogel the Villager that he wasn't allowed to attend their strategy meetings and that they refused to talk to the press --- as if doing so was another sign of their hypocricy. He devoted paragraph after paragraph describing it anyway. In the end, it's always all about them.
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