A hedge fund manager, Daniel Loeb, recently wrote in an investor letter that Obama seems obsessed with the redistribution of wealth, suggesting that he “sees prosperity as a sign of ‘unfairness’ that needs to be corrected by government via higher taxes and increased regulation. Perhaps a plan that led the way forward by expanding opportunities rather than redistributing incomes and emphasized growth and opportunity for all would be met with less political resistance.”
You can read the whole thing on Ira Stoll’s Future of Capitalism blog.
A perfectly reasonable argument. But as Stoll reports, the New York Times saw fit to blast Loeb, calling his piece “blunt and acerbic. Stoll comments, “I don’t recall the Times news reporters characterizing President Obama’s attacks on oil companies, hedge fund mangers, and corporate jet owners as blunt, acerbic, swiping or swinging.”
And since when does a newspaper, particularly one as prominent as the Times, think it proper to argue with the sentiments expressed in investment letters? The answer, I guess, is that the NYT has come to see itself as Obama’s Praetorian Guard, on duty at all times to defend the leader from any and all criticism.
