Obama - A Populist or of The Political Class?

Earlier today President Obama sat down with the CEOs of many of the largest banks in the US.

From the NYTimes' Eric Dash:

The 13 chief executives emerged from the 90-minute meeting pledging to cooperate with the administration’s efforts to shore up the banking industry and the broader economy. On a bright day with the cherry blossoms in bloom, administration officials and the bankers presented a unified message to the nation: We’re all in this together...

“I’m of the feeling that we’re all in this together,” said Vikram S. Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, shortly after leaving the White House.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, used the same phrase to characterize the president’s message: “Everybody has to pitch in,” Mr. Gibbs said. “We’re all in this together.”

I have a real problem with this.

From my perspective, Obama ran as a Populist advocating issues such as Transparency in Federal Spending:



And I applauded him on his efforts.

But now he's spending his time with the same bankers who created this mess... and Obama wants to give them even more federal tax dollars?

Sorry, but it looks to me as though President Obama is fast becoming a member of The Political Class. I'm tired of this coddling, not to mention the bailouts, of billionaires.

I hope that Congresswoman Rosa Delauro's husband Stan Greenberg gets a hold of Obama soon and shakes some sense into him.

Why Stan Greenberg? Because Greenberg seems to understand that elected officials should be representing the voters to the government, not the government to the voters.

Wikipedia notes Greenberg's "1985 study of Reagan Democrats in Macomb County, Michigan became a classic of progressive political strategy, and the basis for his continuing argument that Democrats must actively work to present themselves as populists advocating the expansion of opportunity for the middle class."

Tim White