Quote of the Day

"Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They're very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That's part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs."

-- President Obama in an interview with Bloomberg Business Week, when asked about the multi-million dollar bonuses received by Lloyd "God's Work" Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase

This had to be the Quote of the Day simply because of the fallout it's generated.

A lot of people are rightfully saying that the egalitarian tack that Obama seems to be taking here with the Wall Street barons who Hoovered up taxpayer dollars then thumbed their noses at the struggling taxpayers themselves is more than a little questionable. Keep in mind, it wasn't long ago that Obama was publicly expressing outrage over the huge bonuses Wall Street executives continued to enjoy -- the same executives who gang-banged the United States economy, by the way -- while everybody else sucked eggs.

So was this a really goddamned stupid thing to say?

Yeah, when you consider what he's said before and what the people who put him in office -- myself included -- believe, it is in every possible way.

While it's true that Obama didn't specifically say he was for the kind of egregious payouts assholes like Blankfein and Dimon are inexplicably getting and giving, contractual obligations or not, it's tough to not want to hear Obama continue to stand up for "Main Street" and not hedge even an inch to the Wall Street casino managers and pit bosses who've screwed the middle class at almost every turn. Obama was right to say that we don't punish success in America; that's not what we're about. But, in theory anyway, we also don't allow criminals to run the table on the little guy then buy themselves yachts with the little guy's money to reward themselves for fucking the little guy over. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan screwed up, and it's only through our tax dollars that they're still afloat. That's not free enterprise; in free enterprise, you screw up, your company goes down. That simple.

I've always credited Obama rather than blamed him for trying to be a peacemaker -- for being smart enough to provide measured and nuanced responses depending on whom he's attempting to bring to the table. This is all well and good as long as he doesn't go back on a past principle or isn't straight-up hypocritical by doing so. He went out of his way not to antagonize Wall Street in the pages of Bloomberg Business Week. Under normal circumstances there would be nothing inherently offensive about this -- but these aren't normal circumstances. The pressure needs to be kept up on Wall Street 24/7. These guys are already convinced that they can continue to get away with the crime of the century; only the full brunt of America's outrage, delivered at the highest levels of government and by the most powerful servants indebted to the public, will make them think even for a minute that it might not be as easy as they thought.

Theoretically, Obama may have been correct in what he said -- but the message it sends right now is dead wrong. He needs to understand this completely and without reservation.