21st
Douchebag of the Week: Rick Santelli
Originally published: February 28, 2009
It’s a wondrous thing to watch, one’s 15 minutes of fame coming and going right before your very eyes. And such was the magical case last week with one Rick Santelli, CNBC on-air editor turned heroic champion of men’s locker rooms in country clubs everywhere across America.
No, it wasn’t a golf tournament Mr. Santelli won. Rather, he acquiesced to fame from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade last Thursday:
The video was an instant hit, and by Sunday it was CNBC.com’s most popular video clip ever. He had heard from several publishers. Life was good indeed.
But after Santelli enjoyed attention last weekend with his clip providing discussion on numerous channels Sunday morning, the mighty free market warrior’s facade began cracking as soon as the weekend ended.
During a Monday appearance with radio host G. Gordon Liddy—a Watergate burglar who once plotted to kill an investigative journalist—Santelli somehow went along with the suggestion that the “Dude needs decaf” response from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was a threat:
SANTELLI: He started that press conference saying, “I don’t know where he lives, I don’t know where his house is.” This is the Press Secretary of the White House. Is that the kind of thing we want? Is that —
LIDDY: It’s a veiled threat.
SANTELLI: It really is.
And so not to think it was completely Liddy’s usual warped logic alone, Santelli later appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to once again refer to the press conference comment as “scary.”
By the time he appeared on the Today show Thursday morning, Santelli’s rant felt like yesterday’s news and it was somewhat refreshing to see Matt Lauer recap the CNBC personality’s attempted victimization and flatly ask, “Are you serious about that?”
But look at Santelli’s response:
It wasn’t bad enough that Santelli can’t handle a specific and fair reply from the White House. Nothing could be more shameful than a man having gained popularity by preaching supposed responsibility being the same guy who justifies his fantasized fear for safety by immediately reaching for his wife to throw under the oncoming bus.
Ah, Rick Santelli, we hardly knew ye. Sure, there will still be many among that “silenty majority” of all-white, all-male stock traders to whom you’re a true American idol. To the rest of us (the vocal minority?), you’re just another douchebag.
