The Rant: CNBC's Lawrence Kudlow -- A New Low in Right-Wing Trash Talk and Hypocrisy

By Mark Ames, eXiled Online. Posted April 23, 2009.

Wow, 2,600 legal statutes complying with the WTO? Those Tiananmen Square democracy martyrs didn’t die for nuthin’!

My point here isn’t to show what a hypocrite Kudlow is — that’d be too easy, like doing donuts on road kill. No, what I’m trying to bring to your attention, and hopefully to Kudlow’s AA sponsor’s attention, is that Lawrence Kudlow is showing every sign of a man deep in the spiral of a new and violently dangerous relapse. It wouldn’t be the first time-just look back through the New York Times’ archives, and you’ll find some really gripping articles about Kudlow’s tragic, losing battle with the drug they call “the sorority girl’s powdered curse.” Kudlowphiles can learn all kinds of trivia nuggets about their favorite sweaty-pated grouch. Like in 1969, as a university student having to choose between liberal vice (free love, drugs) and patriotic Republican duty (going to war in Vietnam to defend freedom), Lawrence Kudlow did what all the other sly chickenhawk Republicans did: he wormed out of the war, getting an exemption due to alleged “asthma” — which explains why Rush Limbaugh loved him so much. Funny how that asthma never stopped Kudlow from snorting up his retirement money.

As the hippie movement gave way to the Women’s Lib bummer, Kudlow got a haircut, traded in his VW van for the suit and tie world of his industrialist daddy, married a Bloomingdale’s heiress, and embarked on a series of horrifically comic failures and embarrassments that would have crushed an average middle-class person, but not a rich son-of-a-factory-owner like Larry Kudlow. There is no downward mobility for those born into obscene wealth like Kudlow. That’s what his story proves: because no matter how badly Kudlow embarrassed himself, fucked up at his job or in his personal life, or blew all his money, he always had an exalted place reserved in the upper class, and a guaranteed job in television and banking. If that is what he calls “free markets,” then no wonder he’s so sold on them. Who wouldn’t be?

And that brings us to the first Times article where we learn of his descent into cocaine melodrama, in an April 3, 1994, article, headlined “A Wall St. Star’s Agonizing Confession”:

Larry Kudlow seemed a master of the universe. Being a top Wall Street economist was not the half of it. Mr. Kudlow had been a prominent member of President Reagan’s economic team. He helped conceive and fight for the tax-cut proposal that helped Christine Todd Whitman become Governor of New Jersey. One of the nation’s most articulate and charismatic commentators on financial issues, he has become the economic guru of Jack Kemp and of the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, as well as a regular on television interview programs and a speaker commanding hefty fees. He even starred in Cadillac ads.

…But last week, in an interview, Larry Kudlow had a confession to make: behind the polished facade lived a troubled and deeply unhappy man who has been battling an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

…”I am willing to share with you my problem,” he said, following the example of many people in programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. “Anyone who blames Bear Stearns is not right. I take full personal responsibility.”

Then this dapper man in a blue pinstripe shirt and monogrammed cufflinks, a man sometimes described as poker-faced, began to cry. Sounding scared, not at all like the suave raconteur and deft name dropper of two hours earlier, Mr. Kudlow said he lived in fear of sliding backward. “I live my life day to day,” he said.

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