Matt Taibbi - Griftopia

ALSO BY MATT TAIBBI

The Great Derangement:
A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion

Spanking the Donkey:
Dispatches from the Dumb Season

Smells Like Dead Elephants:
Dispatches from a Rotting Empire

W ITH M ARK A MES

The Exile:
Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia

Copyright 2010 by Matt Taibbi

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Taibbi, Matt.
Griftopia/Matt Taibbi.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-385-52997-6
1. Political corruptionUnited States. 2. DeceptionPolitical aspectsUnited States. 3. DespotismUnited States. 4. United StatesPolitics and government2009 5. United StatesPolitics and government20012009. I. Title.
JK2249.T35 2010
973.932dc22
2010015067

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v3.1

To my wife, Jeanne

M R . C HAIRMAN, DELEGATES , and fellow citizens

The roar of the crowd is deafening. Arms akimbo as the crowd pushes and shoves in violent excitement, I manage to scribble in my notebook: Place going absolutely apeshit!

Its September 3, 2008. Im at the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, listening to the acceptance speech by the new Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. The speech is the emotional climax of the entire 2008 presidential campaign, a campaign marked by bouts of rage and incoherent tribalism on both sides of the aisle. After eighteen long months covering this dreary business, the whole campaign appears in my minds eye as one long, protracted scratch-fight over Internet-fueled nonsense.

Like most reporters, Ive had to expend all the energy I have just keeping track of who compared whom to Bob Dole, whose minister got caught griping about America on tape, who sent a picture of whom in African ceremonial garb to Matt Drudge and because of this Ive made it all the way to this historic Palin speech tonight not having the faintest idea that within two weeks from this evening, the American economy will implode in the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

Like most Americans, I dont know a damn thing about high finance. The rumblings of financial doom have been sounding for months nowthe first half of 2008 had already seen the death of Bear Stearns, one of Americas top five investment banks, and a second, Lehman Brothers, had lost 73 percent of its value in the first six months of the year and was less than two weeks away from a bankruptcy that would trigger the worldwide crisis. Within the same two-week time frame, a third top-five investment bank, Merrill Lynch, would sink to the bottom alongside Lehman Brothers thanks to a hole blown in its side by years of reckless gambling debts; Merrill would be swallowed up in a shady state-aided backroom shotgun wedding to Bank of America that would never become anything like a major issue in this presidential race. The root cause of all these disasters was the unraveling of a massive Ponzi scheme centered around the American real estate market, a huge bubble of investment fraud that floated the American economy for the better part of a decade. This is a pretty big story, but at the moment I know nothing about it. Take it as a powerful indictment of American journalism that Im far from alone in this among the campaign press corps charged with covering the 2008 election. None of us understands this stuff. Were all way too busy watching to make sure X candidate keeps his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and Y candidate goes to church as often as he says he does, and so on.

Just looking at Palin up on the podium doesnt impress me. She looks like a chief flight attendant on a Piedmont flight from Winston-Salem to Cleveland, with only the bag of almonds and the polyester kerchief missing from the picture. With the Junior Anti-Sex League rimless glasses and a half updo with a Bumpit she comes across like shes wearing a cheap Halloween getup McCains vice-presidential search party bought in a bag at Walgreens after midnightfour-piece costume, Pissed-Off White Suburban Female, $19.99 plus tax.

Just going by the crude sportswriter-think that can get any campaign journalist through a whole presidential race from start to finish if he feels like winging it, my initial conclusion here is that John McCain is desperate and hes taking one last heave at the end zone by serving up this overmatched electoral gimmick in a ploy for what? Women? Extra-horny older married men? Frequent Piedmont fliers?

Im not sure what the endgame is, but just going by the McCain campaigns hilariously maladroit strategic performance so far, it cant be very sophisticated. So I figure Ill catch a little of this cookie-cutter political stump act, snatch a few quotes for my magazine piece, then head to the exits and grab a cheesesteak on the way back to the hotel. But will my car still be there when I get out? Thats where my head is, as Sarah Palin begins her speech.

Then I start listening.

She starts off reading her credentials. Shes got the kid and nephew in uniformcheck. Troop of milk-fed patriotic kiddies with Hallmark Channel names (a Bristol, a Willow, and a Piper, a rare Martin Mullcaliber whiteness trifecta)check. Mute macho husband on a snow machinecheck. This is all standard-issue campaign decoration so far, but then she starts in with this thing about Harry Truman:

My parents are here tonight, and I am so proud to be the daughter of Chuck and Sally Heath. Long ago, a young farmer and haberdasher from Missouri followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency.

A writer observed: We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity, and dignity. I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman.

I grew up with those people.

They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America, who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.

They love their country, in good times and bad, and theyre always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town.

Im on the floor for the speechstuck in the middle of a bunch of delegates from, I believe, Coloradoand at the line They are the ones who do some of the hardest work, the section explodes in cheers.

I look back up at Palin and she has a bit of a confident grin on her face now. Not quite a smirk, that would be unfair to say, but shes oozing confidence after delivering these loaded lines. From now through the end of her speech there will be a definite edge to her voice.

Before I have any chance of noticing it shes moved beyond the speaking part of the program and is suddenly, effortlessly, deep into the signaling process, a place most politicians only reach with great effort, and clumsily, if at all. But Palin is the opposite of clumsy: shes in the dog-whistle portion of the speech and doing triple lutzes and back-flips.