File this one under Liberal Guilt Syndrome.
In the second hour of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, correspondent Savannah Guthrie gave a live report on the upcoming G-20 summit from London. This was a fairly straightforward report, hitting on issues that the major parties were interested in hammering out – the French want more financial regulation, for example. And then, at the very end of the report, Mika Brzezinski threw a hanging curveball. Guthrie did not disappoint:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI,“Morning Joe” co-host: What are you hearing in terms of who the Europeans blame for this financial mess and is there any blame being put on the United States?
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, MSNBC correspondent: Absolutely. I don't think there's any question that here in Europe and in other places around the world, people place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the United States. And in ways, this G-20 summit which, in years past, was just kind of a meet and greet and a photo op has a lot of importance. In some ways, capitalism itself is on trial, people will really be looking at hard at some of the free market principles that have really governed the day up till now. I don't think we're going see some huge sea change but you know, people are taking a hard look at how we got here and a lot of people do blame this American-style capitalism, lax regulation and the pursuit of money above all things with moral responsibility sort of shoved to the side. And I think we're going to hear a lot of those themes in the coming days.
BRZEZINSKI: All right. Savannah Guthrie, thank you very much. Great report.
For those of you keeping score at home, let’s break this down in slow motion. The economic collapse is the fault of capitalism as a system, and thus, not the fault of individuals who over-leveraged their capital – or, for that matter, individuals who overextended their financial capability by buying overpriced homes.
The normally-meaningless G-20 summit is now important because it has now become Nuremberg for capitalism itself. Scratch that. American-style capitalism – the European version is perfectly fine, because it pays attention to the moral responsibility of the successful to subsidize the unsuccessful individual’s lack of success.
Of course, although the real issue lies with the fault of the few who tarnished the success of many an honest businessman, We the Press will rouse a populist lynch mob to destroy the career of every American capitalist pig.
The Ronald Reagan quip rings all too true for the mainstream media: “We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.”
