Obama's critics who claim the new president is a closet socialist lusting to seize profits have nothing to fear, according to liberal radio host Ed Schultz.
Look at Obama's experience as an author, Schultz suggested on Friday, for evidence that Obama is as much capitalist as the next entrepreneur.
But Schultz quickly leaped from conjecture about Obama's book deal for "The Audacity of Hope" to allowing those uncertainties to morph into hard fact. Not only that, Schultz got the title wrong and appears unaware Obama has written more than one book.
Here's what Schultz initially said (click here for audio of the excerpt) --
Now I think we ought to keep in mind that the president of the United States wrote a book. He knows what capitalism is all about. I don't know what the president's deal was with Random House when he wrote "(The) Audacity of Hope," but I would venture to say that it didn't have a clause in there that said, hey, Barack, this is as much as you can make on this deal. We're going to front you so many millions of dollars to do this and then you're getting capped and that's just the way it is, and we at Random House are going to take everything else.
Minutes later, Schultz stated specifics of Obama's book deal as well-established fact, as if Schultz's bellowing makes it so -- (click here for audio)
So the president of the United States, who has a proven track record in history and record of being a capitalist, having done a deal himself, with no caps and no limit on income, there was no deal in there saying, hey, you sell over five million books, it's all ours and you don't get a cut of that. He knows what profit is!
Don't be surprised to see more of the same from Schultz in the heady initial days of the Obama presidency, especially since the nation's top-rated liberal talker has decamped from Fargo, N.D., and taken up at least part-time residence in Washington, D.C.
In fact, you might have noticed Schultz at Obama's first press conference Monday night, sitting in the front row next to kindred spirit Helen Thomas.
