Taibbi triggers Gergen F-bomb. Sort of.

Matt Taibbi really ruffled David Gergen's feathers in this Rolling Stone post-election Q&A that also included Democratic pollster Peter Hart. This part is too, too, too, too funny:

Gergen:  ...(T)here's a tendency in today's Democratic Party to turn away from someone like Bob Rubin because of his time at Citigroup. I served with him during the Clinton administration, when the country added 22 million new jobs, and Bob Rubin was right at the center of that. He was an invaluable adviser to the president, and he is now arguing that one of the reasons this economy is not coming back is that the business community is sitting on money because of the hostility they feel coming from Washington.

Taibbi: I'm sorry, but Bob Rubin is exactly what I'm talking about. Under Clinton, he pushed this enormous remaking of the rules for Wall Street specifically so the Citigroup merger could go through, then he went to work for Citigroup and made $120 million over the next 10 years. He helped push through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which deregulated the derivatives market and created the mortgage bubble. Then Obama brings him back into the government during the transition and surrounds himself with people who are close to Bob Rubin. That's exactly the wrong message to be sending to ordinary voters: that we're bringing back this same crew of Wall Street-friendly guys who screwed up and got us in this mess in the first place.

Gergen: That sentiment is exactly what the business community objects to.

Taibbi: Fuck the business community!

Gergen: Fuck the business community? That's what you said? That's the very attitude the business community feels is coming from many Democrats in Washington, including some in the White House. There's a good reason why they feel many Democrats are hostile — because they are.

Taibbi: It's hard to see how this administration is hostile to business when the guy it turns to for economic advice is the same guy who pushed through a merger and then went right off and made $120 million from a decision that helped wreck the entire economy.

Quite an achievement to get David Gergen to say "fuck." Saying "Fuck the business commuity?" is better yet, even if intoned with proper incredulity.  It could be a Drudgeworthy lie wrapped in a headline, if only that other Matt cared to smear him.

I thought Gergen was just an overpaid candyass with a squishy caramel center. Who knew he had such fire in him?  It reminded me of election night when Gergen snapped at Eliot Spitzer on CNN for supposedly hogging the limelight.  Gergen is so used to his clique of millionaire milquetoasts -- blathering on endlessly about deficits and uncertainty -- that he always seems stunned to hear a different point of view.

Gergen's "pivoting back to the center" shit usually earns nods and grave looks on CNN.  But Taibbi was having none of it:

Gergen: If Obama is going to govern as well as prosper politically, he has to pivot back toward the center. He must embrace some sort of Social Security reform, just as Clinton did with NAFTA, even though his base will scream about it. He must also enlarge his inner circle by bringing in people who have the trust of the business community. One of the surprises for me has been that even though Obama rescued the banks, the alienation of the business community has reached a point that is threatening the recovery. Business people are sitting on a lot of money and not investing it because there is so much uncertainty about taxes, health care, financial regulations and energy. Obama's got to be more of a partner with the business community.

Taibbi: I have to disagree. The notion that the business community is disappointed with Obama because of what he's done in the past two years, I just don't see that. They're sitting on a lot of money, but they're sitting on it because he gave it to them.

Gergen: You don't think they're disappointed?

Taibbi: I'm sure they would have preferred the Republican agenda, where they would get 100 percent of what they want. Under Obama, they only got 90 percent. He bailed out the banks and didn't put anybody in jail. He gave $13 billion to Goldman Sachs under the AIG bailout alone and then did nothing when Goldman turned around and gave themselves $16 billion in bonuses. He passed a financial-reform bill that contains no significant reforms and doesn't really address the issue of "too big to fail." FDR, in the same position, passed radical reforms that really put Wall Street and the business community under his heel.

Gergen: If you talk to many CEOs, you'll find that they're very hostile toward Obama.

Taibbi: Who cares what these CEOs think? I don't care — they're 1/1,000th of a percent of the electorate. They're the problem. Obama needs to get other people's votes, not their votes.

 I'm not sure if there's a video of this, but I'd love to see it, if only to see Gergen blasted out of his comfort zone.  "Fuck" did seem to trickle readily off his tongue, though, so maybe in his off hours he's a mad cusser.