Real grass roots movements, unlike Axelrod's astroturf efforts, start slowly. You could be right but you could be very wrong. Time (2010) will tell.

I think 'some people might say' or 'it's been said' is some of the laziest and most dishonest reporting technique I've seen in a while, and the widespread use of it is pretty disappointing.

The government is rewarding bad behavior in some percentage of the population by digging them out of the hole they dug for themselves. That doesn't stop me from trusting President Obama more than right-wing screamers to help solve the problem that exists, to all our misfortune. The Bush regime put us in a place where there are no good solutions for an appalling number of intractable problems. This President has asked us to roll up our sleeves and pitch in wherever we can. TV rants don't help anything. Gimme my assignment, Mr. President.

If we had a nation of Santellis, we'd have President McCain.

Bad behavior?

Where's the outrage over AIG? Bear Stearns? GM?

Hello? Santelli?

I'm waiting for Santelli to perform a tirade on AIG from the stage of the CBOE.... probably waiting for a long time.

There are I'm sure thousands of people who hear about this bailout plan and like Santelli think it means the US gov is giving money to greedy speculators who don't deserve it. But the truth is Obama's plan won't do anything for irresponsible borrowers, and if a few manage to get funds, the benefits outwiegh the costs. The devil's in the details. But no matter what, there's fierce opposition on the right and some of the left too to bailing out over-extended "losers."

There's nothing like unhinged ranting against losers and socialists, while surrounded by people responisble for today's mess, to paint a portrait of a sane and rational thinker.

Real grass roots movements, unlike Axelrod's astroturf efforts, start slowly. You could be right but you could be very wrong. Time (2010) will tell.

"Please Mr. Republican, don't throw the stimulus package into the briar patch!"

I saw and was annoyed with article as well. The Politico actually seemed kind of decent in the last months of the campaign but now seems to be a thinly veiled outlet for right-wing hackery.

There is upside for the republicans when voters are cynical about politics and politicians. The Politico seems desinged to raise cycnicism levels. Just read some of the comments on these stories - most of their readers seem to be more than a little wacky. The sort of people who worry about Obama's birth certificate, etc.

Geez, I thought the only "grass root" movement involving Santelli was his support of McCain. How did that work out, DocM?

We had "a nation of Santellis" once; about a century-and-a-half ago. It lasted for all of 4 years---from 1861 to 1865---and we kicked its postulating posterior back into the Stone Age (refer to photographs of the Confederacy's major urban areas by about the time hostilities ended).

Now apparently, Mr. Santelli is afraid that the government might render upon his house a fate similar to that which was rendered upon the cities of Richmond, Atlanta, and Columbia during the final months of the Civil War. However, if Mr. Santelli wishes to speak in an anti-government rhetoric similar to that of the Confederate Secessionist, then I suppose he should be worried about a similar fate being visited upon him.

As an aside, I note that the Confederacy never had to worry about being targeted from space via GPS satellite technology, or smart weapons fired from Predator drones that can be controlled from anywhere on the planet, or any of the other "soldierly goodies" available to a legitimate Government that Mr. Santelli so denigrates from his "derivatives throne."

But if Mr. Santelli wished to portray himself as some sort of quasi-Jeff-Davis type, then by all means, let the targeting sequence begin....

Well, if we are a nation of Santellis, than Phil Gramm was spot on when he said we were a nation of whiners.

Fortunately for all of us, both Gramm and Santelli are full of it.

God, Rasmussen is insufferable. Regardless of the merits of their election polling their issue polling is so unabashedly right-stilted it's almost embarrassing.

"Some people say..."

Some people say the Earth is 6000 years old and flat, that we never landed on the moon, and that woman was created from Adam's rib. Ah yes, the old "some people".

I beg to differ. The polls may say what they say, but Don't discount the Politico's generalization. There are plenty of perfectly sane folks who share Santelli's concerns about the mortgage bill.

Absent Santelli's theatrics, his basic point does have a lot of common-sense appeal. The vast majority of mortgage borrowers found it perfectly simple to NOT take out an un-affordable loan, to know their limits. That's a lot of voters who see the over-borrowers as having dug their own holes.

The pulpit HANDED to Mr. Santelli is disproportionate to the message he portrays. STFU already.

Thank-you ghillie for saying "Gimme my assignment, Mr. President."

I'm ready. I'm willing. Being pliable in this economy will be self rewarding.

Bushes legacy will be a road map on how not to do things. Tax cuts my *ss.

On a somewhat related note, I found David Corn's (Mother Jones) take on the Republican backlash a bit unsettling and simplistic. He was on yesterday's Maddow show--and Maddow unfortunately was not there to challenge the interviewees, as she typically does so well. Maddow is not just entertaining with good delivery--she intersperses pertinent historical content(peripheral issues) which provide important context for the issues at hand--and result in the listener walking away with an enriched understanding of the issue at hand. This teaching aspect Maddow brings to the show is something I really notice in her absence!

He suggested maybe we should 'salute' some of these kooks for speaking their mind (say what?).

And he went on with a sort of 'What's the big deal?' response: Asserting rather cooly that rationality will prevail over the Republican's rhetoric--that if the economy and unemployment improves in the near future, they'll be proved wrong, they'll be forced to hang their heads in shame..

I think the point is they are not rational. They speak out of both ends of their mouth. They don't care about facts. Their mission is to to blame the Democrats again and again and abdicate all responsiblity. And more recently, their comments have been unbelievably insane--petty, mean-spirited, bigoted and paranoid.

And they will always find the Democrats to blame, no matter the last eight years (actually longer than that if you look at how Reagan began the whole "hands off" mentality).

Corn failed to note any of this context, of this pattern that tells us there is a lot more going on here.

I hope you don't discount my generalizations, RusS, but I'm sure there are a lot of perfectly sane folks who share this concern about their own mortgage bill: "Crap, if I loose my job, not only can I not make my mortgage payments but I won't be able to sell my home without a loss and I am going to be living on the street."

And note that includes a lot of people who found it perfectly simple to NOT take out an un-affordable loan, to know their limits. That's a lot of voters who see the "over-borrowers" as themselves.

Absent Santelli's theatrics, his basic point does have a lot of common-sense appeal. The vast majority of mortgage borrowers found it perfectly simple to NOT take out an un-affordable loan, to know their limits. That's a lot of voters who see the over-borrowers as having dug their own holes.

Here's what the "let them drown" people aren't stopping to think about, though: the housing market is dragging everyone down. If your house goes down $50,000 or $100,000 in value because a quarter of the houses in your neighborhood go into foreclosure, is it going to make you feel any better to say, "Well, my losses are worth it since it means my neighbors don't get anything."

If you end up upside-down on your mortgage owing more than your house is worth because of how far home values plummet, how comforting is it going to be to know that at least the people who couldn't pay their mortgages without a little assistance are out on the street?

Again, we are not bailing people out because we feel sorry for them. We are bailing them out because they're dragging EVERYONE down with them. Personally, I'm not willing to drown myself just because some undeserving person somewhere might benefit if I don't.

"Some people say" is indeed bad reporting, but the use of it here isn't a news story, it's a poll question. It seems to me that in an opinion poll its use is perfectly legitimate in order to sum up an opinion in a few sentences without citing a particular source; the respondent could have feelings about the source that color their reaction to the opinion.

That is, if the poll were honest. In this case, the question is misleading as hell since it describes something the president's program doesn't do.

"Some say this program kills kittens with hammers. Should the government be in the business of killing kittens with hammers, yes or no?"

A 55% majority said the government is rewarding bad behavior.

It's also misleading of Politico to report on the poll as if the 55% who think "the government is rewarding bad behavior" are in fact opposed to the entire program as a result. The question doesn't ask if one opposes or supports it.

A person could quite reasonably think that, yes, the program is as described in that it rewards bad behavior, but the economy is on the verge of total fucking collapse and the tsunami of foreclosures has to be stopped, moral hazard or not. That person could honestly answer yes to the question as worded, but s/he would still be supportive of this specific proposal.

Or one could disagree that the question describes this specific program at all, but agree in principle that rewarding bad behavior is, um, bad, and answer yes to that- which is no doubt what Rasmussen was counting on.

The 55% does seem low given the way its worded. I'm guessing a lot of respondents saw through it as a loaded question and answered it accordingly.

You quote a poll question: "Some people say that having the government subsidize mortgage payments for financially troubled homeowners puts the government in the position of rewarding bad behavior. Is the government rewarding bad behavior when it provides subsidies to those who are most at risk of losing their homes?"

Poll this: "Some people say that having the government subsidize sewage treatment plants for financially troubled cities puts the government in the position of rewarding sh*tty behavior. Is the government rewarding sh*tty behavior when it provides subsidies to those who are most at risk of losing their ass"?

CMcC

Mike K wrote: "Real grass roots movements ..."

Yeah, sure.

"Real grassroots movements" that are made-for-TV by giant media corporations, featuring scripted, focus-group-tested, teleprompted rants by their highly-paid "on-air personality" employees, cheered on by an audience of career white collar crooks.

Only the sort of dumbass who actually believes that corporate-funded millionaire hate-monger Rush Limbaugh is a "man of the people" who "sticks up for the little guy" against "powerful liberal elites" could believe that Santelli's bought-and-paid-for, fake "reality TV" performance represents a "real grassroots movement".

It never ceases to amaze me that the dittoheads actually believe the one-dimensional, cartoon comic-book stereotype fantasy that is spoon-fed to them by the corporate-owned right-wing media is real.

It's as though Battlestar Galactica fans went through each day in fear and paranoia that people around them might actually be Cylon skin jobs.

Who the hell is Santelli and why should we care?

Of course there is a nation of Santelli like people. That nation is Serbia.

Santelli is just a better dressed Joe the Plumber.

Some time back my mother bought a condo for 60 G's ($379,298 correcting for inflation*) and had to dump it for 25 G's ($158,041) when that section of Chicago starting turning black.

Too bad they didn't have mortgage correction then! Pioneer spirited people of the 60's just accepted that market prices go up and down.

* Price correction by http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Whooo! LOL. What a hoot. How long has Santelli been in the spotlight? 15 minutes yet?

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