Rothschilds Against Elitism
Irony truly is dead as Lynn Forester de Rothschild endorses John McCain on anti-elitism grounds:
“This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don’t like him,” she said of Obama in an interview with CNN’s Joe Johns. “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”
On an unrelated note, the stakes have rarely been higher in an election for extremely rich people than they are in this one. Barack Obama’s tax proposals don’t raise a ton of new net revenue and, as a consequence, have tended to be viewed as pretty moderate. But one reason they don’t raise all that much net revenue is that he’s offering large tax cuts to the majority of people and those offset the substantial tax hike he’s proposing on the rich. Justin Wolfers has a good chart on this:
54 Responses to “Rothschilds Against Elitism”
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September 17th, 2008 at 9:09 am
I try to get all my news on who’s elitist from the Fortune magazine’s richest 400. They seem to have the best perspective on these things.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Actually, anyone who likes money has a strong incentive to NOT back McCain because he will do away with greed.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:13 am
“I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”
It’s been painful/humorous/infuriating this election cycle to watch all the inventive ways white people have found to express their racism in a society where it is no longer permitted to be overtly racist against black people.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Conclusion: “elitist” has become the new code word for the intersection between the sets “smart” and “black.”
September 17th, 2008 at 9:17 am
The only thing I’ve ever read my Mickey Kaus that I agree with.
She lost me at the “de”
September 17th, 2008 at 9:17 am
yeah, mccain has totally given people a reason to trust him, what with all his lying.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I hope the Obama campaign will have the guts to publicly hang this motive around Forester de Rothschild’s neck, though I doubt they will.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Lady de Rothschild should become the poster girl for an Obama campaign ad. She’s so…rich! Please, campaign geniuses–just show her mouthing her insane views about Obama and flash her net worth and something regarding her social status (and titled British twitness) onscreen.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Kit Marlowe taught me to say my prayers,
“Why, this is Hell nor am I out of it.”
September 17th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Who actually cares about what this lady has to say? Does she has any carrying power like, say, Oprah?
Category: Would be funny if it mattered.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:35 am
So Obama wants to give “tax credits,” ie. redistribution of wealth to those who don’t pay income tax. Then he calls it a tax cut. Tell me, what is he cutting the marginal tax rates to if he calls it a tax cut? Hmmm, that’s what I thought, playing against the stupidity of the American to not understand his redistribution from the haves to the have-nots cloaked as a “tax cut.”
September 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am
she’s a racist, an idiot, or a racist idiot: this may be the most stunningly foolish remark this side of e o’neal!
September 17th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Cafe Press needs to launch the following shirt:
Baroness de Rothschild, billionaire London socialite, finds Obama “elitist,” endorses McCain for his common touch.
I’d like to note Obama’s support on Wall Street, and that, while “please please please make me pay more taxes” is probably not anyone’s position, wealthy liberals are capable of saying “Bush’s tax plan is laughable and I don’t mind paying more on my $800,000 per year so long as everyone else does too.” I’d point to guys like Buffett and Gates, who are happy to say “yes, the rich should pay more taxes, including inheritance tax–there’s no reason my kids need billions apiece.”
September 17th, 2008 at 9:46 am
The people who give things “play” make over $600,000 per year.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:57 am
“The people who give things “play” make over $600,000 per year.”
Wow a political economy of major media. Usually around these parts it’s just chin-scratching: “why does the media behave this way?? I don’t get it????”
September 17th, 2008 at 10:38 am
The difference for middle class taxpayers here is real, but for people making above the national median income (which is to say most people who are working full-time) it tends to be a pretty small difference.
Really? From the chart it looks like at least the bottom 80% or so of households are going to come out substantially ahead under Obama.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Actually, Matthew, if the economy performs as well under Obama as it has historically done under most Democrats, even with his tax hikes on the top 1%, they’re likely to still come out ahead — the increased rate of growth will more than make up for his taxes.
I think it’s known as “trickle up”.
Yes, he’s increasing their taxes a lot, but it’s still a tiny percentage of their income that can be made up for by an increased percentage in the growth in their income.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:06 am
I initially thought the story was from the Onion! Amazing
September 17th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Elitist is the new black!
September 17th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I was at home looking at the news and I came upon a site that had a news article about Baroness de Rothschild, who is a big Hillary supporter and is coming out in support of McCain and is even going to campaign for him. I was flabbergasted. But the article had a comments section and I started reading with morbid fascination all these people saying “Yeah! Obama is inexperienced! Hillary was disrespected! I’m voting for McCain!” And I couldn’t believe it. One said: “Obama has to lose, and then we’ll purge the party of all these Obama supporters or maybe start our own party.” The incredible stubbornness!
First you say you support Hillary. But then Hillary loses. But then you say you will not support anyone but Hillary. But Hillary has lost, so what do you do? And then there’s another problem: Hillary has come out and said she supports Obama and even campaigns for him. Hillary pointed to the resulting problem at her convention speech when she addressed her followers like this: when you supported me, were you only supporting me, personally, or were there some issues about which we cared very deeply? Those issues, and the consequences flowing from the kinds of choices we make about those issues, are still in play.
The problem, then, is that the Hillary supporters want to claim they support Hillary exclusively. They don’t care – this is the implication – about the issues she campaigned on. They are committed to Hillary the person, not Hillary the presidential candidate with positions about the direction the country should move in. But then Hillary the person, the one they are so committed to, to the exclusion of all else, says we should support Obama. And yet the disappointed Hillary supporters continue, as is their right, to refuse giving their support to Obama. But on the basis of what? Hillary Clinton, the person they are exclusively committed to, says we should support Obama. If our commitment is to Hillary herself, the person, on what basis do we refuse when this person says “vote for Obama”?
And so it turns out that the disappointed Hillary supporters are not going to be voting on the basis of issues such as reproductive rights and the threat that McCain poses to, say, world peace through an attack on Iran, because those issues pale in significance to their commitment to Hillary, the person. But then how can they say that they are voting on the basis of some preference for Hillary, the person (denuded of any significance when it comes to issues and program), when that actual person, Hillary, has said we should swallow our disappointment and support Obama? On behalf of what, with reference to what, are disappointed Hillary supporters going to vote? It can’t be in relation to any of the issues that roil the campaign, because they have already said those are of secondary importance. But then it also can’t be in terms of a personal and non-political commitment to Hillary, the person, because she has argued we should support Obama.
One can only wonder what the word “Hillary” is meant to stand for, given that the actual person walking around with that name has pointed us in the direction of defeating McCain.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I hope they don’t. I hope they mostly ignore her. Though I think there’s a nice case to be made for a big newspaper ad called “Millionaires for McCain”, including that chart, by a snarky lefty group.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:46 am
This is a pretty good illustation of Mrs. de Rothschild’s logic:
http://www.yestodemocracy.com/yes_to_democracy_no_to_pu/2008/09/the-puma-mindse.html
September 17th, 2008 at 11:48 am
You can’t make this stuff up:
“When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means.”
http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/the-world-according-to/2007/10/05/An-interview-with-Lady-de-Rothschild
September 17th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Why isn’t this chart in every Obama ad? It’s a great visual that totally destroys McCain’s lies about his tax plan. If this chart were popping up in the news cycles, maybe half the country wouldn’t completely misunderstand the two candidates’ tax plans.
September 17th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
All media bias stories tend to focus on left vs. right. How many of the talking heads on TV make more than $500k? Many, I presume.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
A Rothschild against elitism.
The mind boggles.
The Republicans can make parody of themselves without even trying.
Comedy is not dead.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Brilliant move, McCain! Well played….Lady de Rothschild is simply smashing!
September 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
“Elitist is the new black!”
I love it!!
September 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Convenient how the media drops the title “Lady” from her name when attributing her “elitist” quote. Ya think you’ve heard it all, but the baroness, with her fortune, is able to dig even deeper….
September 17th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
John Ransom, most of the people — Lady de Rothschilds and one or two other examples aside — whose comments you’re trying to understand are much more easily explained by the likelihood that they were never Hillary supporters.
You know what they say: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
September 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Close. Elitist is the new uppity.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Perhaps the Lady de Rothschild can show SHE’s not elitist by entering the Miss Buffalo Chip contest next year at Sturgis, per McCain’s suggestion for Cindy.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Lady De Rothschild makes Cindy McCain look like…
Sarah Palin.
What a swell party they is.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
It’s really simple. Rothschild is going to do whatever benefits the Zionists (i.e., themselves) the most. Ever read that book titled The Synagogue of Satan?
September 17th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
The Onion hits this one on the head:
Portrayal of Obama as Elitist Hailed as Step Forward for African Americans
September 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
In that interview Steve links to, Lady de Rothschild says, “What is in the best interest of all Americans? . . . I think if history is our guide, we’ve had stronger economies, more wealth creation, under Democratic presidents than we have under Republican presidents. So I don’t understand why all my capitalist friends aren’t Democrats.”
And this:
And how did you meet [John Kluge]?
L.R.: He was a client, and also around New York, you know. I’ve always been very blessed with, I don’t know, meeting a lot of people.
And she says this: “I thought I would die and go to heaven if I ever had $40 million.”
and this: “Well, most of all I learned that it’s better to be lucky than to be smart.”
and this:
L.G.: You’re a media owner. How do you think Rupert Murdoch is going to do with the Wall Street Journal?
L.R.: I think Rupert made a brilliant acquisition. I have so much respect for Rupert Murdoch, I cannot even tell you. I don’t, of course, agree with his politics all the time, but I think that he is a visionary. I think he is gutsy. Everyone I’ve ever known who’s done a deal with Rupert cannot say a bad word about him. He’s honorable, and I think it’s an obvious thing for him to do, and I think it was brilliant.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I don’t know how long it’s been since you worked in the real world, but there are lots of people working full time who make less than those median numbers. That’s why they’re median.
September 17th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
This is her house:
September 17th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Look on wikipedia for the “Ascott House” It is where she lives…
September 17th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
It appears that de Rothschild only supports “ordinary” people, like Sarah Palin, who are for turbo-capitalistic policies that benefit her. While Obama, and people like me are somehow elitists, because we want de Rothschild to pay more taxes. It angers me that the Republicans and the rich seem to have a monopoly on who they decide to be American. I guess to be “American,” is to support their economic agenda.
September 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
but if you’re making over $600,000 a year and especially if you’re making over $2.8 million a year you have an extremely strong incentive to back McCain.
This was aptly illustrated in my neck of the woods when the first anti-Obama smears in the local letters to the editor were penned by a high-end realtor. I don’t think it occurred to him how quickly readers would Google his name (or know of him, it’s a small island) and connect the dots.
September 17th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
When will we get a lot of media attention on all the republicans who are supporting Obama?
September 17th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
BigTruck wondered why this chart isn’t popping up in all sorts of Obama advertising. I think the reason is simply that, for anyone earning between $66K and $166K — which I am sure must be well over half of the electorate — there really isn’t much of a difference between McCain’s plan and Obama’s. The disparities lie at the extreme ends of the income scale, which are folks whose votes are predicable anyway. Last thing Obama would want to do, is to emphasize to the average voter that he [Obama] really won’t do a whole lot more for him/her, than McCain would.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
This provides another demonstration of McCains’ and the Republicans’ putrid aims and tactics.
At the heart of McCain’s campaign is that his policies are directed at promoting the fortunes of the ultra-rich, and especially those ultra-rich who head the defense industry, the gun industry and on and on with that sort of thing, while making an appeal for votes to the religious right and the kinds of people for whom maintaining institutionalized bigotry against gay people is “non-negotiable” and even more important that protecting us against terrorism.
There are a lot of Sally Kerns out there. After Sally Kern declared that homosexuality is a greater threat to the U.S. than Islamic terrorism, she was received with a standing ovation by a bunch of Republican legislators.
Lynn Rothschild’s announcement of support for McCain was orchestrated by the McCain campaign. She did not say anything specific about Obama’s policy proposals. The words that came out of her mouth were written by people in the McCain campaign: “I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”
Please understand that those were not her words. A McCain campaign speech writer fed them to her. They are very calculated, but they do not provide any cogent criticism of an Obama policy proposal, still less a persuasive argument that McCain’s policy proposal on the same matter is superior.
Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild has sold out to the McCain campaign because it is promising to tax her less. To hang on to more of her tremendous wealth, she is willing to jettison every single dream Hillary Clinton ever had for Democrats to right the wrongs of the Bush era. Think where we were in 2000, think where we are now, and tell me that Bush has not shipwrecked our country.
A gutter whore is more honorable than this Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild.
Report
By ScottRose on 09/17/2008 at 9:36pm
September 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Folks…get the July 08 issue of British Vogue and read the interview with Mrs. de Rothchild. Here are some quotes from the article. (note: italics did not appear in the article)
“But her background was nondescript white picket-fence New Jersey.”
‘
“I came from a very claustrophobic, typical suburban American town, and I just couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
The article further states, “In her political ambitions, Lynn is a twenty first century version of Pamela Harriman, who famously ensured Bill Clinton got the Democratic nomination in 1992 and then became US Ambassador to Paris”
“Like Harriman, Lynn is deeply entrenched in Democrat party politics and, although she denies having any personal political ambitions, diplomatic circles in London are buzzing with the perfectly reasonable idea that were she to become president, Hillary Clinton would reward her close friend and fundraiser with the post of American Ambassador in London.”
So have we come upon the REAL reason why Mrs. de Rothchild has made the rather easy leap (for her) from attentive committed Democrat to enthusiastic Republican?
Mrs.Clinton can no longer offer up an American Ambassadorship in London to the woman who has everything. And of course Senator Obama is much to elitist for her to suppose she could expect such an appointment from him.
Ah, but John McCain if he should win could certainly offer up this prize of all prizes to Lynn Forester de Rothchild.
He and she will have to dance around that “redneck” statement, but a girl with three or four homes and a guy with 7 homes ought to be able to make beautiful music.
Are we getting close Lynn??? An Ambassadorship for the girl who has everything?
You wear only Chanel and Valentino and now Sarah Palin wears Valentino…girls’ bonding?
September 18th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Short version: Obama isn’t elite enough (i.e. rich enough or white enough) for the de Rothschild crowd.
Look. Giving 10% more of tons of money back in taxes still leaves “regular” folks like de Rothschild with tons of money. It’s only fair to ask them to finally meet their proportionally appropriate tax burden. But Lynette & her set are very big on traditions and that’s something that’s just not done. Thus they are digging in their heels.
If it weren’t so profoundly tragic, it would almost be funny. Having grown even fatter whilst suckling at the corporate teat, the uber-rich have been long content to nickel-and-dime the rest of America. Today we watch as they and their pals trample each other lining up for US to bail out their big business interests. With our hard-earned tax dollars. The tax dollars they do not want to contribute their fare share of. And we have no choice other than to comply.
It’s good to own a bank. ‘Cuz the last time I checked, if I tanked my business due to my poor judgment, my shady accounting practices, my hubris and my blinding greed (all while following rules that I set and paid for), you all won’t foot the bill.
Hell, even if that were possible, I’d be too ashamed to ask.
-AF
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud
October 24th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I just don’t even like Obama’s attitude; he has been very Cocky in some of the things he said or the way he’s said them, like when he said to that reporter “we’ll talk to you later sweetie” and the way he made his “brushing off” hand motion; and the way he said in a stump speech something about Hillary he made a brushing movement on his shoulder like she was a bug he was brushing off – his wife did that too on the Ellen show when she came out and danced and then made that brushing motion on her shoulder; when he talks now about Joe the Plummer he uses that cocky look to say “Mccain thinks he’s helping Joe the Plummer, “come on”. He’s just arrogant; but I won’t denegrate him like everyone has demeaned Sarah Palin or Hillary. I just told you what I see.
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