Of all the ignominious actions of the Obama administration, the steadfast, systematic shielding of Wall Street from criminal liability is probably the most corrupt in the traditional sense of that word. In Newsweek this week, Peter Boyer and Peter Schweizer have an excellent examination of what happened and why, tying together crucial threads. First they lay out the basic facts, including the core deceit of the President's campaigning for re-election like he's some sort of populist crusader:
With the Occupy protesters resuming battle stations, and Mitt Romney in place as the presumptive Republican nominee, President Obama has begun to fashion his campaign as a crusade for the 99 percent - a fight against, as one Obama ad puts it, "a guy who had a Swiss bank account." Casting Romney as a plutocrat will be easy enough. But the president's claim as avenging populist may prove trickier, given his own deeply complicated, even conflicted, relationship with Big Finance.
Obama came into office vowing to end business as usual, and, in the gray post-crash dawn of 2009, nowhere did a reckoning with justice seem more due than in the financial sector. . . . Two months into his presidency, Obama summoned the titans of finance to the White House, where he told them, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks." . . .
Candidate Obama had been their guy, accepting vast amounts of Wall Street campaign money for his victories over Hillary Clinton and John McCain (Goldman Sachs executives ponied up $1 million, more than any other private source of funding in 2008). Obama far outraised his Republican rival, John McCain, on Wall Street - around $16 million to $9 million. As it turned out, Obama apparently actually meant what he said at that White House meeting - his administration effectively would stand between Big Finance and anything like a severe accounting. To the dismay of many of Obama's supporters, nearly four years after the disaster, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.
"It's perplexing at best," says Phil Angelides, the Democratic former California treasurer who chaired the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. "It's deeply troubling at worst."
Comment: For more information on this alleged "second underwear bomber" please read the following:
Fake War on Terror: Underwear Bomber 2.0 was CIA Double Agent
The Underwear Bomber - Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism
Underwear Bomber Redux - Was Mutallab An Israeli "Secret Weapon"?
Haskell Blows Whistle on Underwear Bomber, Government Op