◼ Schulte deserves special attention. If this deep-pocketed donor and private-equity whiz were a Republican, the Occupy hordes and left-wing super-PACs would have made him a household name by now. - Michelle Malkin/Human Events
The SEIU already would have picketed his private residence. Cher, Bette Midler and Chris Rock would be tweeting furiously about this privileged white robber baron in all caps.
Schulte, you see, earned his money in much the same way the demonized Mitt Romney did: through corporate restructuring and rescuing debt-burdened companies. He and his former partner, Sam Zell, have happily embraced the nickname “grave dancers” since the early 1990s. By 1993, their billion-dollar “vulture fund” based in Chicago had purchased all or part of Jacor Communications, the embattled media conglomerate; Sealy Corporation, the mattress empire; and the distressed Schwinn Bicycle Company.
The duo also scooped up Santa Fe Energy Resources (an oil and gas company) through a partnership and refinanced Revco D.S., the drugstore chain. Schulte called his financial playground “the land of broken dreams,” according to the Los Angeles Times, which described the partners as “bottom-fishing.”
Team Obama had plenty of brutal depictions for GOP private-equity mavens during the 2012 campaign: “Looter.” “Corporate raider.” “Greedy Gekko.” “Heartless profiteer.” Liberal media outlets likened Romney’s cohorts to mobsters, strip miners and cannibals. “Bain was just like the Donner Party,” comedian Stephen Colbert snarked. “They ate the weak.”
