In the real estate investment business, I’m told, it’s smart strategy to acquire buildings in disrepair, give them some basic cosmetic refurbishment, and market the newly-gussied-up building to the least-suspecting buyer for a pretty penny. Fractured ethics aside, there’s nothing wrong with it, I suppose: Caveat emptor and all that. While I have never had the benefit of advice from Howie Rich of New York City, a real estate investor – nay, mogul! – I might imagine that he knows the tricks of the investment trade as well as any other, which is why I’ve been entertained in recent days by the efforts being expended to rehabilitate his public persona. If most middle-America readers haven’t noticed, there’s a good reason for it: The refurbishment comes first tricklingly through the bought-and-paid-for right-wing media, then to the mainstream-pretending right-wing media, which means that a front-page coronation by the Wall Street Journal cannot be far behind. But a pretty new façade may not compensate for the foundation of facts erected during the 2006 campaign season.
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