Working Class Economist: May’s Rich Asshole of the Month Is…

With my recent trip to China and ongoing struggle to post pictures from Shanghai and Hong Kong (more coming tomorrow…I hope) some regular features on the site have suffered as of late. And perhaps none more so than the regular “Rich Asshole of the Month” feature which is coming in at the 11th hour on the final Wednesday of the month, but hey, better right at the end than late or not at all.

Anyway, May’s “winner” is…Newark New Jersey Mayor Corey Booker!

Now I can almost hear some of the grumbling about this particular selection. “But Corey’s a Democrat” Well…he says he is at least. “But Corey’s a good guy who rescues people from burning buildings.” Corey’s a masterful politician that never misses an opportunity, a first-class schmoozer that never shows his bad side to the camera. “But why single out the well-meaning mayor of an impoverished city when there are so many bigger and richer assholes out there, such as the governor of his state Chris Christie.” I can’t deny that there are many, many bigger assholes out there than Corey Booker but you could also say that about any other month’s winners as well. Mitt Romney may say “Well at least I’m not as big an asshole as Santorum” who may say that he’s not as big an asshole as Chris Brown who may say he’s not as big an asshole as the Koch Brothers/Sheldon Adelson/Foster Fries/Anyone else destroying American democracy with shadowy Super-PACs.

It’s true that there’s always a bigger asshole out there. [I’m sure even Joseph Kony thinks there are worse assholes out there.] But that isn’t an excuse that completely validates everything you do or excuses away all accountability. And Corey Booker, like it or not, does have something to answer for these days.

Just as all of the other assholes have been chosen to represent a specific-type of rich asshole to illuminate all the forms they can come in, so has Booker. Whereas Mitt Romney is the aloof mega-millionaire vulture capitalist who doesn’t even pretend to care about people, Mayor Booker is the polar opposite: a career “liberal” politician fully indebted to the exact same corporations over people’s rights, a.k.a. someone who’s only pretending to care. In that way, he’s like an urban, liberal Santorum (the Bible Beater millionaire who fakes commonality with Joe rural as he sweet talks him into voting against his own interests).

I’ve always felt that Booker wasn’t truly the real deal, and his only real cause is the personal advancement of Corey Booker. Still, his latest flareup with the Obama administration only further highlights why Corey may only be paying lip service to economic liberalism. For those that don’t know, he went on the attack against the Obama campaign’s attack on Bain Capital and Mitt Romney’s record of vulture capitalism there. His exact issue seems to be with all partisan campaign rhetoric and attack ads…apparently having never seen or participated in a political campaign before. [As a general rule, the more a politician says “both sides need to stop the attacks,” the more full of shit he is.]

Now is it really that Mayor Booker (not exactly Obama’s biggest supporter before this and with a well-reported history of halfhearted support for the president, otherwise known by its traditional name j-e-a-l-o-u-s-y) is just flabbergasted at Obama—-who is called a communist on a daily basis—-wanting to fill Bain Capital back as an example of the type of capitalism that has nearly ruined this country? Is he really a dainty Southern Belle just appalled at the realities of a political campaign? Why hell no. It turns out that Booker has received nearly 600,000 dollars in political contributions from Bain Capital.

This alone warrants him serious rich asshole consideration as one of the latest politicians to fall into the trap of defending the indefensible merely because they’re paid to. Also, it makes him extremely disloyal to the only Democrat that can actually affect change: Obama. A lowly mayor of a wrecked town can’t really do anything, which is exactly why Bain Capital (and other traditionally Republican companies) feel so safe giving him political campaign money. They can buy a conservative Democrat like Booker to be the mayor of a liberal town that is always going to have a Democrat mayor (puppet Democrats in solidly blue cities are more useful to them than Republicans that don’t have a chance of winning) and therefore look like they’re a “bi-partisan” company, while undermining Democrats with any real power at every turn.

So yeah, shame on Corey Booker. Shame on his petty jealousy with Obama. Shame on him for not really solving any of Newark’s problems and trying to outsource them to private industries (like Zuckerberg trying to gin up good press by giving money to Newark’s schools the same week The Social Network comes out portraying him as an another rich asshole). And double shame on him for being yet another bought and paid for Democrat who will defend any corporation that gives him a check. So yeah, congratulations to May’s “winner” Booker, who truly does deserve it.