Leon Cooperman's Fraught Epistolary Relationship With The President Takes Another Dark Turn
Hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs alumni association president Leon Cooperman has never really embraced the presidency of Barack Obama.
LC has been on a quest to get Obama to see things his way. He's cajoled and pleaded, but mostly he's appealed to the White House through the written word.
In 2011, he penned an open letter to The President that was critical of Obama's rhetorical voice. LC complained that the Commander-in-Chief was being a total buzzkill when it came to the financial sector.
The letter was peppered with fun stuff like this:
"I cannot credibly blame you for the economic mess that you inherited, even if the policy response on your watch has been profligate and largely ineffectual. (You did not, after all, invent TARP.)"
And this:
"But what I can justifiably hold you accountable for is your and your minions' role in setting the tenor of the rancorous debate now roiling us that smacks of what so many have characterized as "class warfare"."
And this:
But as President first and foremost and leader of your party second, you should endeavor to rise above the partisan fray and raise the level of discourse to one that is both more civil and more conciliatory, that seeks collaboration over confrontation. That is what "leading by example" means to most people.
A melange of passive-aggressive criticism and unsolicited leadership advice, the letter was a genuine attempt by LC to get the President's attention, something that never quite happened. And we know it didn't happen because LC bitched about for quite a while.
And now he's saying that the letter got him audited.
Yesterday, on the sexy new reboot of "Wall Street Week", LC opined that he got audited after sending his open letter but then cagily left idea of causation up for debate.
"You know I got audited by the IRS," he said. "But I don't know if there's any cause and effect."
But let's dive into this. If it wasn't the letter, what did get a man with an estimated wealth of close to $4 billion audited by the IRS?
Maybe it was his granddaughter's poems?
While attending an event hosted by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in 2012, LC hand-delivered a self-published book of his poetry by his then 14-year-old granddaughter to Obama. The President did not so much as send a thank you note for the gift. We know that because LC bitched about for quite a while.
Regardless of what got LC audited, it seems pretty clear that his attempts to forge a pen pal relationship with the White house has become a dangerous liaison.
