I love reading Holman W. Jenkins Jr.’s Wall Street Journal column for its insights into how business leaders think. Not for Jenkins is the conciliatory, “let’s look at things from the other side’s point of view” approach of his colleague Al Hunt, the Journal’s token near-liberal. Jenkins provides the unvarnished master-of-the-universe capitalist perspective — you can practically hear the squeak of the armchair leather, the chomp of the cigar. This, say his columns, is the way the world works. (Interestingly, Jenkins’ bio suggests he has spent his entire career in journalism and has no business experience.)
Today Jenkins reviews the business careers of our president and vice president and exonerates them of any wrongdoing. So what if Bush benefited from some sweetheart transactions? So what if Cheney sold Halliburton high before asbestos laid it low? They’re businessmen, dammit — this is what they do!
Look, you government-handout-seeking lefties: “Mr. Cheney was hired to open doors… Not to belabor the obvious, but a big part of Mr. Bush’s value to partners and investors was his political visibility too.” What are you, an idiot? Of course businesses hire politicians because of who they know!
Such honesty is disarming. Strangely, though, in Jenkins’ analysis, the moment Bush and Cheney got elected, everything changed: “Only a moron suspects Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney went to the trouble to become president and vice president to throw bones to business cronies.”
In other words, when out of office, Bush and Cheney got paid the big bucks to win friends and influence people, because they were so well-connected; but once they took office, they suddenly cast off all ties to their “cronies” and were transformed into even-handed public citizens.
Permit me to be moronic, then, for a moment: Maybe Bush and Cheney did not become president and vice president solely to “throw bones to cronies”; maybe they got elected with the help of those cronies’ cash and intend to repay the help with far more than bones. Maybe the “you wash my hands, I’ll wash yours” deals that made Bush his fortune as a private citizen bear a striking resemblance to the “you wash our hands, we’ll wash yours” relationship his administration has maintained with its friends in business. Maybe it’s the way the world works that’s moronic.
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