# Crony Capitalism Sucks **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 23, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crony-capitalism-sucks/568688 "2011-01-23T20:48:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 78
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crony-capitalism-sucks/568688/78 "2011-01-25T11:15:20Z")
So Obama chose a businessman as business advisor? I can’t work up too much outrage. Is corruption involved? I don’t know, but even if so, what will the headlines say: **Obama deserts his Marxist baby-killing America-hating supporters in support of Wall Street or campaign donor!!**? Sounds like just another dog-bites-man story to me. There’s only one aspect of this thread that interests me… > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > And what makes you think this is the only instance of crony capitalism I’ve complained about? You might want to go back and see what I’ve had to say about Bush’s sucking up … Now this _would_ be a genuine man-bites-dog story. A supporter of Stupidism who argues against the stupidity of Stupidist leaders. (There was plenty of Stupidist criticism of Bush, but the charge was that his policies weren’t stupid enough. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s entirely possible that I never used that term. Why don’t you search for “Sam Stone” and “steel tariffs”, or “agribusiness” or “Boeing”, or “Monsanto”? I’m pretty sure you’ll find plenty. Mr. Stone suggests search terms (though also complaining they won’t work 🆒 ). I did some of the searches he suggests: “steel tariffs” > [@Get Ready to Pay More for Your Tires](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-ready-to-pay-more-for-your-tires/509852/1): > > The Obama administration in its infinite wisdom [has decided to slap a 35% tariff on Chinese tires.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103957_pf.html) > > So much for Obama’s rhetoric about free trade… > Would anyone like to defend this particular brand of idiocy? Yep, searching is hard and it was someone else in the this thread who mentioned “steel tariffs.” Still I excerpt here to help Mr. Stone demonstrate his fair-handed and complimentary treatment of Obama. Mr. Stone suggest agribusiness as a search term to demonstrate his dislike for Bush. The example Google found was posted during the Bush Administration when Congress was Democrat-led: > [@Missile Defense](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/missile-defense/450349/16): > > … (Bush is a big proponent of cellulosic ethanol, while Congress prefers to throw money at their big agri-business sponsors … I searched for Stone posts containing both “Bush” and “Boeing.” Three turned up. The one quoted above, one unrelated discussing NASA and one, from a thread titled “Pelosi’s Palatial Plane Preference: Piggishness or Republican Pablam?”, which fails to support his claim. So I see no evidence for any man-bites-dog breaking news story. Mr. Stone’s claim, to allow him to condemn Obama’s “crony capitalism” (😕 :dubious: ) without appearing hypocrite reminds me of columnist David Brooks, when he wanted to condemn those who accused Bush of prevaricating for the Trillion-Dollar Iraq Mistake. Brooks had devoted many column-inches of whining and pants-soiling about Clinton’s evil Monica-gate, but, with Bush under attack, wanted to retract and apologize for those whines. 😃 --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crony-capitalism-sucks/568688)._