WINGNUTS, DESPERATE FOR A FOLLOW-UP HIT (AND FLOPPING AGAIN)

The Glenn Beck/Andrew Breitbart/right-wing blogosphere nexus scored a couple of quick hits a while back -- Van Jones, ACORN -- and it's almost as if that rapid success has become a curse rather than a blessing. These guys want another kill, desperately; they're like a band that topped the charts early in their career and are now feeling dread as they face the possibility that they may have peaked at the age of 23. So they're trying to reduce their previous success to a formula that they can clone -- and it ain't working.

They've tried to make Anita Dunn into their next victim -- but nobody outside the base is buying their campaign against her, and, since she's someone The Washington Post called "a D.C.-certified grownup," she's safe unless she does something really awful.

So the 'nuts are trying again.

The latest attempt -- from Breitbart (again) and some rightbloggers -- is this (heavily edited) video from Ron Bloom, who is (wingnut version) the "Manufacturing Czar" or (Bloom's own version) a "senior adviser to Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner":



Bloom speaking in 2008, as the economic downturn is just beginning, says:

Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who'll pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun....

The wingers are screaming, "ANOTHER MAOIST!!!!!1!1!!!!!" -- and noting that Bloom worked for (gasp!) unions.

Well, yeah -- Bloom did work for unions. Here's his bio:

Ron Bloom is an expert of restructuring of companies and organizations. He has previously organized the restructuring of the investment bank Lazard Freres and several labor unions....

After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1985, Bloom worked at investment banking firms for about ten years. He was one of the founders of the investment bank Keilin and Bloom. The firm was involved in transactions on behalf of the United Steelworkers. Bloom has served as special assistant to the president of USWA since 1996. He has focused on issues the union faced in its collective bargaining program when it negotiated with companies that were financially troubled.

Investment banker! Harvard Business School! Yeah, sounds like a real pinko to me.

And here's the pinko-commie-Maoist confab he was addressing:

6th Annual Distressed Investing Forum
Union League Club, New York City
February 27-28, 2008

Distressed Investors have been poised for the next wave of defaults and a downturn in the credit cycle and the new opportunities it may bring.

... Standard & Poor's estimates US corporate defaults could rise to more than $35 billion over the next 15 months, breeding multiple opportunities for private equity firms and hedge funds that specialize in seeking deals within troubled industries.

This sixth annual forum, produced by Institutional Investor Events in association with Credit Investment News, will explore where investors are finding their opportunities--be it from the defaults occurring within subprime, the struggling automotive industry or from new opportunities emerging following the turbulence which has rocked the financial industry....

This was a gathering about profiting from corporate failure! Quintessential modern American capitalism! Bloom spoke there, and these morons are calling him a Maoist!

And what was the subterranean cell where this commie gathering took place? Oh yeah -- New York's Union League Club:

... Many prominent civic, state and national leaders have enjoyed the fellowship of the ULC. Theodore Roosevelt managed his early political career from the Club's chambers. J. Pierpont Morgan was a regular, along with John Jay, William Cullen Bryant, Chester A. Arthur, and Thomas Nast. Fifteen Presidents, seven Senators, many Congressmen, diplomats, cabinet members, and scores of chief executive officers of major corporations have been members of the Club during the past hundred and forty years and have participated in its programs.

Architect Benjamin Wystar Morris (1870-1944) designed the Clubhouse at 37th Street and Park Avenue, property that once belonged to the family of J. P. Morgan. It was completed in 1931. The Georgian exterior, with its symmetrical red brick facade, reflects familiar motifs from Park Avenue brownstone mansions, but on a grand ten-story scale. The architectural ensemble formed by the entrance foyer and grand staircase stands as one of Morris's great successes and as a New York landmark interior....

The Club contains 60 bedrooms for members and guests, a variety of meeting rooms for business and social functions, and one of the most extensive club reference and lending libraries in New York City. The Union League is also home to a distinguished art collection and an art gallery with rotating exhibits....

Typical commie crash pad!

Actually, what difference does it make? Even if this had been said in some malcontent's bug-infested cold-water flat from beatnik 1959, what did Bloom say that was so controversial? The capitalist game is rigged? It's a power game? What sensible American doesn't believe that?

McCarthyism FAIL.