Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Rick Santelli, the Tea Party, and S&P's Downgrade

On February 19, 2009, Rick Santelli of CNBC ignited a revolution with a rant heard 'round the country.

The Tea Party movement was born.

Now, two and a half years later, as Leftists blame the Tea Party for the downgrade by Standard and Poor's, Santelli comes to its defense.

He also has some strong words for the treasury secretary, the president, and the 2004 Democrat presidential nominee.

Video.




Transcript, from NewsBusters:

JOE KERNEN, CNBC: Alright. You know, Santelli, I never know with you. So, I don't know how much of the debate you've been able to watch, but what do you make of what's happened since Friday?

RICK SANTELLI, CNBC: You guys ever play sports? You ever been on an organized team?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

SANTELLI: Okay. You know sometimes you get a couple of bad calls or the game didn't go your way but it should have? A good coach isn't going to come up to you and say, “Gee, you know, the other team really stinks. You know, I’m mad. We're going fight, we're going to appeal. We’re going to go to every league and every lawyer.”

No, you know what a good coach says? “It doesn't matter. Okay? We’re a better team than this. Just take this to motivate the team to move on to greater things.” You know, the treasury secretary, the eight percent excuses, you know, the blame Bush, blame the sun, blame this. You know what leadership means? It means that it doesn't really matter what S&P says. We all know deep inside that no country is the same as it was five years ago. And the market seems to be okay with it. And as for stocks going down we were already Ralph Cramden on thin ice. Now an infant jumped on our shoulders. It’s just even more weight.

In the end, in the end we need to address problems we know exist. A treasury secretary or a president should be out here not fighting S&P, not grabbing the other coach and slapping him around, taking the umpire behind the barn. He should be getting the team psyched to overcome.

See, I remember I had a professor in college. I wrote a great paper. Could never please this guy. But it made me better. Okay? We’re better than this. Don’t get caught up in the minutia. All this BS. We’re better than this. We need to prove it. We’re off the track. Whether we're better than some other country or not, the real issue is we're on the wrong path.

Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up, we would have been rated BBB.

It is ridiculous for Leftists, including Obama, to try to pin the downgrade on the Tea Party. It's so lame. It makes no sense.

To the contrary, according to Santelli, Americans should be thanking the Tea Party.




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