The faux Republican outrage doesn't stop there. David Brooks of The New York Times often volunteers to be the voice of the Republican party, especially when Rush is too busy treating with his pilonidal cysts. Jim Hightower takes Brooks to task over his latest disinformation screed and reminds Brooks that "This 'small minority' he weeps for is the same bunch of elites who've created tax dodges, trade scams, deregulation fantasies, de-unionization schemes, financial hustles, and other mechanisms to redistribute wealth from workaday families to them." Blogger Milt Shook then plays the audience's new favorite tune, the popular Top 40 platter entitled, "How The Neocons Screwed Us, And Why We Can't Let It Happen Again". Catchy! Love the beat!
But none of this absolves Obama from his promise to be The Official Blame Guy. "It's my job!" he declared. So Obama is in the very place he aspired to be, which is the center of the activity. But there are serious questions being raised about his intentions as well as his abilities, and We, The People will hold him to that announcement. He already has much to answer for.
Paul Craig Roberts, Reagan's Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, is wondering if the entire bailout itself isn't just a scam played out on the taxpayers. Even if it isn't, Barbara Kellerman of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government observes that “The thing [the Obama administration] have to avoid is a sense they’re quick to bail out Wall Street, but not Main Street.”
This position and observation are reinforced by the return of the disgraced former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer. He was hot on the trail of Wall Street's excesses when he was tackled deep in his hooker's end zone, so when he declares that The Real AIG Scandal is not the bonuses but that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full with taxpayer dollars, I would tend to believe him.
David Michael Green of The Regressive Antidote was a staunch supporter of Obama during the campaign. As such, he finds himself deeply disappointed in his knight errant, whom he feels has taken up the wrong challenge:
...it is no exaggeration to say that this vibrant and well-liked president, who carries the hopes and aspirations of a nation on his shoulders with a robust foundation of good will to match, is potentially giving away everything in order to make sure that a band of corporate pirates keep their stolen taxpayer money.This observation isn't being lost on the American people, as former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund Simon Johnson — now a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management — and his partner James Kwak wrote recently. "A.I.G. is essentially advocating survival of the weakest," they wrote. "Thankfully, the American people are not buying it."
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