Paul Kengor, Professor of Political Science, “Dupe of the Year 2012,” originally published at The American Spectator. You can read the article in full at this link.
Dupes comprise a long, dubious tradition in American history. Over 200 years ago, George Washington warned the nation about “dupes” in his historic Farewell Address. Such warnings would echo from the founding of the republic through the Cold War. During the Cold War, “dupe,” like the associated word, “useful idiot” —attributed to Vladimir Lenin — became an everyday term. Dupes were legion during the Cold War, a unique breed of (largely) left-leaning Americans who, unwittingly, allowed or enabled themselves to be deceived or misled by communist propagandists. Communists were natural liars, and liberals/progressives were their primary suckers. In fact, Obama’s communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, excelled at this crass craft.
Dupes come in many shapes and sizes. Remember the Stupak Democrats? There was Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan, who, on March 24, 2010, along with 12 other beaming pro-life House Democrats, stood aside President Barack Obama as he signed an executive order promising to prevent abortion funding in Obama-care. They made another group of dupes, the social-justice champions at Notre Dame who gave Obama an honorary degree a year earlier, look shrewd as serpents by comparison. Or, consider the majority of professing Roman Catholics who once again elected Barack Obama, thereby obliviously authorizing Obama’s HHS mandate and voting to violate their own religious liberty.
Every dupe requires a duper, and, for Warren Buffett, his master manipulator was President Barack Obama. The way that Warren Buffett has been used by Barack Obama — on a grand scale — is nothing short of astounding.
Obama needed a respected billionaire from the business world to willfully serve as his poster boy for making the obscene case for higher taxes rather than lower spending. And that’s where Warren Buffett has dutifully served up himself. Buffett has helped Obama enormously by stoically (and stupidly) saying that he isn’t paying enough, and Obama has employed Buffett’s example in spades. In fact, I bet Warren Buffett may well be Barack Obama’s most frequently cited American, right alongside his nebulous group of nefarious “millionaires and billionaires.” Warren Buffett is the compliant face of that designated Obama reptile class. And Buffett doesn’t seem to mind one bit; in fact, I’ve never heard him object.
For a further sense of the surreal, imagine if Warren Buffett ran his business like Obama runs his government. If one of Buffett’s employees habitually spent money that wasn’t there — year after year and decade after decade — all along blaming the problem on his predecessor, Buffett would insist the employee be immediately fired or perhaps sent to prison. But when Obama and his cohorts in Washington do it, Buffett apparently asks for more of the behavior; worse, he asks that he and all the rest of us suckers subsidize it. He thus greatly pleases Obama and his Democrats and his media, earning their hearty accolades. He is the propaganda chip for Obama’s class-warfare campaign to increase taxes on “the rich” while not cutting the government spending that feeds Obama and the Democrats’ growing government class of political dependents. He is also thereby helping them fund their long-term political/electoral strategy.
In short, what this means is that Warren Buffett is Barack Obama’s dupe. And for that, Warren Buffett is Dupe of the Year for 2012.
