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 his popular 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]
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Obama snubbed that average guy, Jamie the Banker? That’s it, you’ve lost my vote, you African Muslim witch doctor.
What nerve! What’s next? Asking Repukes to try participate in making the country better?!! That’s Nazi talk!
I just can’t believe this! Why would Obama not want tomorrow morning’s papers to run with a front page photo of him signing the Wall-Street Financial Reform bill while surrounded by a group of smiling, applauding Wall Street bigwigs?
Surely such a photo would lend the bill much credibility!
I would have invited them to the bill signing and then had the Secret Service escort them to the White House basement for a photo-op with our new death panels.
i know i was outraged when i found out osama bin laden wasn’t invited to the signing for whenever the last quadrillion dollar afghan war appropriations extension happened.
surely those unmanned drones have some sort of precision-guided presidential stationary delivering device.
You’d think the Moguls of Malfeasance would be grateful their heads aren’t on pikes, where they belong…
Don’t these people realize we wouldn’t have any money if it weren’t for bankers?
Tell them that there’s some last-minute perks in that there toilet bowl.
Barry is just tired of his audience acting like a pack of face-humping cockbags. Can’t say I blame him. Hell, if I were preznit, my SOTU would be delivered to Congress on VHS.
I just had this vision of Hopey slumped against the podium, body riddled with a score of bleeding pen wounds, looking up with a sorrowful yet comprehending look in his eyes, and uttering “Et tu, Timmy G? Et tu?”
They just wanted the opportunity to say no, and snub the President. That would have been sweet for them. After all, they have enough money to buy anything in the world they want, so it is the intangible things like rudeness that brightens their days.
i remember back in June when the Blackhawks invited the Flyers to their victory parade in Chicago. I believed the Lakers graciously obliged the Celtics as well. C’mon, Obamasshole.
U.N.I.T.Y
Hey, the Obaminator is more clever than that. He engineered this trivial snub so that the conservatronic pundits will have something insignifiant to whine about for the next three days. Cue Michelle Bachmann, “”It’s slavery!” Wait for Glen Beck, “I cried all night for those poor wittle bankers as I felt them as shunned and I by that socialist dictator.” You get the picture.
President Obama should have invited the rich thieving assholes — at least so he could hear their cries rising up through the grate in the floor of the Oval Office.
let’s be honest. if he had invited them, everybody would be talking about how offensive it would be for the president to invite defeated opponents to a bill-signing.
[re=622351]Horselover Fat[/re]:
I was thinking more positive ones like what happened to the heads of the five families when they weren’t invited to Barry Corleone’s god son’s christening.
I’d invite them, and make them sign it, too…in their own blood.
This is all theater. Good banker/bad banker jive.
Proof that Barry Nobama is racist toward free market-loving bankers.
[re=622328]Serolf Divad[/re]: Slight modification – “signing the Wall-Street Financial Reform bill while surrounded by a group of smiling, applauding Wall Street bigwigs in orange jump suits.”
[re=622343]Radiotherapy[/re]: Jeebus, I thought we didn’t have any money BECAUSE of the bankers. Damn, now I have to rethink my whole worldview, and that takes away valuable time when I should be pretending to work.
The bill signing should be more like a wedding where the bride and groom invite all their exes to the reception. It is the ultimate gesture of love and friendship.
If you finger bang your girlfriend, are you going to show up at her parents’ house the next morning to gloat?
Obama didn’t invite Bernie Madoff, either, proving he is antisemitic.
slow news day.
again.
Obama has reached out (probably more then he should have) reached out to the other side. Remember the health care summit? And don’t forget that during his speech he thanked the Republican members who supported the bill.
If the rest of teh Republicans want to run against this bill, Democrats should more then welcome it.
The reason that they weren’t there is that they are the first detainees in the FEMA built concentration camps.
You just KNOW that Michelle is crowing to her royal attendants, “Let them eat derivatives.”
Please *please* let the “people’s veto” be a real thing… it sounds awesome.
“Is Obama not familiar with the maxim that one should keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer?” Eh, fuck you. Close Enough. — Barry O.
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