Pity The Billionaires, WSJ Edition
Credit: Google Images
January 30, 2014

No apologies from the Wall Street Journal for Tom Perkins' odious editorial. Not only were there no apologies, there was a whole lot of flailing at liberals which sounds like it came straight from the desk of Rupert Murdoch himself.

Entitled "Perkinsnacht", today's screed is an exercise in right-wing bubble outrage. Take, for example, this claim:

While claiming to be outraged at the Nazi reference, the critics seem more incensed that Mr. Perkins dared to question the politics of economic class warfare. The boys at Bloomberg View—we read them since no one else does—devoted an entire editorial to inequality and Mr. Perkins's "unhinged Nazi rant." Others denounced him for defending his former wife Danielle Steel, and even for owning too many Rolex watches.

Maybe the critics are afraid that Mr. Perkins is onto something about the left's political method. Consider the recent record of liberals in power. They're the ones obsessed with the Koch brothers and other billionaires contributing to conservative causes, siccing journalists to trash them and federal agencies to shut them down.

Let me translate that: Billionaires really hate it when their underhanded, dishonest, tax-evasive ways are exposed for what they are.

This paragraph is the one that convinces me it's Rupert's handiwork:

President Obama's IRS targeted conservative political groups for scrutiny in an election year and has now formalized that scrutiny in new regulatory "guidance" for this election year. Democratic prosecutors in Wisconsin unleashed a special prosecutor to target conservative groups allied with Governor Scott Walker. A judge threw out the subpoenas as baseless but only after months of legal harassment and dawn police raids.

The only people who believe the IRS targeted conservative political groups for scrutiny are Fox News viewers. The rest of us have a few facts at our disposal, including the one that shows lots of groups were scrutinized on all sides of the political spectrum. I don't see the Occupy folks whining in the pages of The Nation about the DHS infiltrating their ranks, do you?

Here's the billionaire bottom line:

The liberals aren't encouraging violence, but they are promoting personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish political opponents.

Is there anything left to do but call bullshit? I love poking holes in right-wing bubbles, but this seems more like a right-wing outpost on Outer Stupidia.

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