Democrats to Cory Booker: There’s no room for honesty in politics

By David McElroy · May 23, 2012

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker committed a mortal political sin Sunday. He dared to tell the truth when that truth didn’t reflect well on his own political party. Predictably, the party establishment was not pleased.

In case you don’t know what the story was about, it’s really fairly simple, but you’ll need a bit of background. There are investment companies called private equity firms which raise money from investors and then spend the money to either invest in early-stage private companies or else find struggling firms to turn around. They place big bets on companies they believe have potential, some new firms and some old firms. When they buy or invest in older companies, though, they’re generally struggling companies that would otherwise go out of business, so their job as investors is to provide investment money and insist that management (usually new management) restructure the business to return to profitability.

It’s not especially complicated and it’s fairly mundane in the business world. Many startups couldn’t happen without investment from this kind of company, and many poorly managed failing businesses would simply go out of business if this kind of company weren’t there to invest and restructure. Normally, nobody talks about these companies other than people in the business world. It’s different this year, though, because Mitt Romney was a long-time partner in a major private equity firm called Bain Capital — and Democrats have decided to make that a campaign issue.

When an investment firm tries to save a failing company, the company always has to be restructured, which pretty much always means getting rid of employees. Sometimes it’s because the company just has too many workers for what it’s doing. Other times, money-losing parts of a company are shut down in order to save the profitable parts.

Incredibly, the Obama campaign and other Democrats have decided to make this an issue. They’re finding examples of companies where workers lost jobs after Bain invested, so they’re blaming Romney and private equity firms for these job losses. I don’t think much of Romney, but basic intellectual honesty requires someone to say, “Hey, you people are guilty of demagoguery for political purposes.”

In a nice way, that’s what Cory Booker said when he appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. (See video clip below.) When asked about the issue, here’s what he said:

As far as that stuff, I have to say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. It’s—to me, we’re just getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially, I know, I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses; this to me, I’m very uncomfortable.

Booker simply said something that is very obvious to any thinking person who’s not simply reading the script given to him by the Obama campaign. Predictably, though, Obama supporters and progressive left bloggers have gone ballistic, accusing Booker of being a pawn of private equity — and worse. (Check out some of the tweets attacking Booker.) Booker has been forced to “clarify” his remarks, and his fellow Democrats have been scrambling to figure out how to deal with a man who told the truth.

For their part, Republicans have been just as partisan and stupid. Instead of trying to make the intellectual case that private equity firms are a key part of the free market, they tried to make political hay of it. GOP operatives are gleeful to see Democrats attacking each other. They even launched a petition (for Romney supporters to sign) saying, “I stand with Cory Booker.” Booker was infuriated by this reaction, because he supports Barack Obama and is angry to see his honesty used in such a partisan way against the candidate he supports.

A normal, sane person could be forgiven for thinking that people on both sides of this issue are crazy. It’s clear that both sides are simply interested in winning — scoring points against the other. Honesty and intellectual integrity mean nothing to either side.

Let me be clear. If the party labels were reversed, the same thing would be happening in reverse. Republicans would be savaging one of their own who dared to speak the truth that was off the accepted party script. Democrats would be gleeful at the issue. Neither side is better than the other.

Here’s the real lesson that Booker probably learned from this. If you’re going to be involved in the political process, you’re not allowed to tell the truth unless your party or faction approves. Your conscience or sense of honesty are irrelevant. Is it any wonder we get the simple-minded non-choices of the two parties? If anybody tries to deviate from the party line, his future is damaged.

The system is sick. All it cares about is winning. In such as system, honesty and integrity are liabilities.

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For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

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