You Are Now Entering the Mallory Factor Spin Zone
After Mallory Factor appeared on "Morning Joe" this morning, Jeff Hauser sends us this report.
What type of person comments on a generation of declining union membership and increasing inequality and blames unions?
What type of person looks back at America’s economy—after decades of deregulation followed by economic bubbles and misery for the 99% of people who work hard for a living—and blames unions?
It would take someone who combines an ear for dishonest public relations spin with a large wallet linked to the continued enrichment of Wall Street tycoons.
Perhaps someone who used to be “a leader of a tiny but powerful army of New York conservatives whose checkbooks sustain the national Republican majority.”
Maybe a “banker and former public relations specialist” who has a history of compromising his integrity to advance his checkbook like Mallory Factor:
Factor convinced [fellow Wall Street tycoons] that helping elect hickish pols with social views many Manhattan conservatives consider Neanderthal was essential. After all, if Christian conservatives could help elect the Republicans who would loosen corporate regulations, why not harness that power.
Mallory Factor is someone who understands that the banking industry’s bad reputation from destroying the world’s economy requires a diversion, a scapegoat. That he would write a book focusing on blaming unions rather than his Wall Street peers is entirely unsurprising.
It's astonishing any objective news organization would take seriously someone with Mallory Factor’s background, especially given that even conservatives recognize Factor’s willingness to say or doing anything for personal advancement.
Factor’s rise in GOP politics has been attributed to his desire to become an ambassador; as Stephen Moore, the founder of the supply-side Club for Growth PAC, told the now-largely dormant conservative newspaper the NY Sun:
Mr. Factor approached senior White House officials about his interest in an appointment. "He was talking about trying to get something in Bush's first term," Mr. Moore said. White House officials suggested to Mr. Factor that he "go out and raise $2 million for Senate candidates" in 2002 and two years later asked him to raise $4 million, Mr. Moore said.
"The Bush people totally screwed him," Mr. Moore said. "Both in 2002 and 2004, he did all the things they told him to. He was straightforward that he wanted to be part of this administration. I never understood why they would stab him in the back. The Bush administration is a very inbred kind of culture. It's very difficult for an outsider like Mallory to be part of that."
So when a multimillionaire Wall Street banker like Mallory Factor blames teachers, firefighters and nurses for America’s economic problems, everyone should consider the source before taking his arguments seriously.
