In Republican folklore, President Obama is a sworn enemy of American capitalism. He wants to “put free enterprise on trial” (Mitt Romney); he erroneously thinks that the country’s problems “must be the fault of those people on Wall Street” (Mitch McConnell); he has “bastardized” Wall Street CEOs (Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, and no, I have no idea what he means).
For much of the past three years, these charges have been simply crazy—bonuses and profits returned to Wall Street, Obama’s campaign hauled in massive donations from the financial sector and high-ranking executives avoided any punishment for the financial crash.
In his State of the Union last week, Obama announced a massive
interagency investigation into malfeasance on Wall Street that led to
the global financial crisis. He appointed a strong progressive,
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, to head it—and
Schneiderman boldly proclaimed this weekend that his effort aims to end
the special protections currently enjoyed by Wall Street as a whole.
“You can’t have equal justice under law and ‘too big to fail,’ ” he
said.
Obama isn’t putting free enterprise on trial, but he is putting a
particular brand of invincible Wall Street free enterprise on
trial—perhaps literally.
So what’s the Republican response been? In short, nothing.
