Opponents Of Wall St. Reform Bill Not Invited To Bill-Signing Party

Remember when George W. Bush invited the leaders of Planned Parenthood and NARAL to the signing of his anti-abortion law? He did this because he was in the business of building bridges to his political opponents. But now the important objective newspaper The Washington Post (an offshore tax shelter run by the Kaplan Test Prep Corporation) has revealed that Obama has no such dedication to bipartisanship. He has revealed this terrible failing by not inviting the "titans of Wall Street" to the signing of hispopular financial reform bill, for the extremely petty reason that they did not support the bill, and actually spent a great deal of money trying to prevent it from being passed.

Is Obama not familiar with the maxim that one should keep one's friends close and one's enemies closer?

Among those who did not receive an invitation to be among the 400 people at the 11: 30 a.m. bill signing: Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein, Wells Fargo's John G. Stumpf and -- somewhat surprisingly -- J.P. Morgan Chase's Jamie Dimon.

Dimon, of course, was an Obama confidant of sorts during the president's first year in office and was one of the most frequent guests in the West Wing, according to White House visitor logs.

But, as with the others, Dimon actively spoke out against the president's legislation, breaking with the White House and arguing that his reform plan was bad for the banks and the economy. Friend or no, that was enough to leave the mailbox empty this week.

It's possible that Obama was worried that these rich old men would attempt to rush the stage en masse and wrest the pen from his hand, an archaic procedure know to our Founding Fathers as a "people's veto." Still, by not telling the bloated plutocrats when and where the law they hate so much would be signed, he showed weakness -- and you should never show a financial services executive weakness, because they'll, um, short-sell you, or something.

Other Wall Street kingpins who did support the bill, like Citigroup's Vikram Pandit were invited, but whatever, it doesn't count unless you're kissing the ass of everyone who hates you. In another sign of rank cowardice, Obama is not even going to bother trying to raise money from these people, because then he'd after to hear endless diatribes about how the economy really needs a big capital gains tax cut and that should be it for "reform," forever. [ WP / WP ]