The Wall Street Administration

Obama is either on their side, or they have too much power for him to withstand. It doesn’t matter which. Whether he really thinks this way or whether he believes he must pretend to think this way is irrelevant. Motives don’t count, actions do. The president of the United States, for whatever reason, feels the need to suck up to a band of unscrupulous Wall Street criminals.

This is like a battered wife apologizing to her abusive husband for making him beat her:

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.

The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”

“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”

I know a lot of people who deserve a paycheck but aren’t getting one, due in large part to the calculated swindles of those “savvy businessmen.” I know a lot of people whose lives are now spent in a constant state of anxiety. I know several people who have lost their homes. I’m one month away from being on the street myself. No matter, we must all be lectured on the realities of the free-market system. Daddy has to wag his finger and remind us that good Americans don’t begrudge other people’s wealth or success; I mean, shucks, there are baseball players who make that much money. Be reasonable.

It’s beyond intolerable, and it reflects a staggering lack of awareness about just how bad it is out here. They really are the aristocrats at Versailles.