Listening to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman today, Sen. Barack Obama has the best possible celebrities endorsing him in former Secretary of State Colin Powell and billionaire blusterer Warren Buffett.
But these two figures mean nothing to Main Street voters. People with titles including Friedman carry no clout here. They are far removed from reality in households struggling to pay monthly mortgages, losing their homes, unable to afford tuition for their children already in school and losing their jobs. They know nothing of the growing fear. Their only fear is making the next dinner party list and CNBC appearance.
Buffett and Powell just represent two more people who lied to the American people. And we are tired of this lack of respect and common decency. There is a palpable anger that will be unleashed on Nov. 4 that may well surprise a news media now speaking of what to do with an election night that's over early with an Obama landslide.
Silly, stupid people!
Last Friday, Buffett -- a key Obama financial advisor -- told investors like you and me to jump back into the stock market like he is. Get greedy, he exhorted us.
But Buffett did not tell us how differently he invests from us. While he will buy a big mass of public stock in a company with his billions, he shores up his investment with a commitment from the company to allow him to buy its preferred stock.
That's the private vintage offered only to corporate fatcats and their buddies. Such stock pays a 10-percent dividend each quarter, paying Buffett big bucks no matter whether the stock is up or down.
That's like having a card shark doing the dealing for your benefit at the weekly poker game. Someone has to lose, and it is going to be your stupid buddies. Buffett should be ashamed of his reckless advice to the American people. The game is fixed for him to profit no matter what. We don't get the same advantage.
Powell told Congress and the United Nations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that needed to be taken out. He claimed the Iraqis were driving around trucks making lethal chemicals. He was wrong. And more than 4,000 Americans have lost their lives for his lies and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died.
Bob Woodward's book War Within recounts a meeting of a bipartisan panel on Iraq in which Powell blew up in anger when questioned on his contention that this nation should invade. One panelist said after Powell walked out: "He's the one guy who could have stopped this from happening." So how does Powell really fit with a presidential candidate who opposed going into the war in the first place?
Meanwhile, the former secretary of state still goes around making speeches and big money without being held accountable for his actions that made an invasion of Iraq possible.
He represents just another in a long line of inside-the-Beltway officials who have lied to the American people. His endorsement means little in a tightening presidential race in which neither choice for the White House is acceptable to undecided voters.
In such cases, undecideds will go to the known commodity. And that's Sen. John McCain, despite the starry-eyed assessment by Friedman today that means nothing on darkening Main Streets across the nation.
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