Obama Bullies American Investors

Check out this article By John Carney from businessinsider.com (h/t Anne Leary at Backyard Conservative whose posting was via Hot Air). "Creditors to Chrysler describe negotiations with the company and the Obama administration as 'a farce,' saying the administration was bent on forcing their hands using hardball tactics and threats.

"Conversations with administration officials left them expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

"Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions."

Then check out this article on hedge funds by Clifford S. Asness. You remember the hedge funds. "The President has just harshly castigated hedge fund managers for being unwilling to take his administration’s bid for their Chrysler bonds. He called them 'speculators' who were 'refusing to sacrifice like everyone else' and who wanted 'to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.'"

This talk of sacrifice is bothering me more and more. When Obama first began preaching sacrifice at the inauguration, I felt uneasy. His starry-eyed cheerleaders in the media rooted in him onward. Howard Fineman of Newsweek was gently critical of Obama for "The failure to call for genuine sacrifice on the part of all Americans, despite the rhetorical claim that everyone would have to 'give up' something."-- I addressed Fineman in a post here. The problem is that people envision sacrifice stopping at the neighbors' front door. While Michelle Obama is publicly wearing ugly $540 Lanvin sneakers (what did she "give up" to wear these-- aside from good taste), her husband is his telling the American people to sacrifice. It's difficult to find a better illustration of a sacrifice for "thee and not me" than the arrogant and elitist Obamas.

Obama has already declared open season on the free market (as noted in a previous post) back in early March. Ousting GM CEO Rick Wangoner was just a beginning of the administration's strong arm tactics. Thomas Lauria's claims will soon simply be another notch in Obama's belt.

Obama displays the classic traits of a bully. Unwilling and afraid to address actual enemies abroad, aside from wishing everyone in Iran a "happy nowruz" and occasionally describing Iran as "unhelpful," Obama focuses his ire on the people he supposedly represents. With the full might of federal government juggernaut behind him, Obama's administration calls out critics personally, ousts CEOs personally, and threatens hedge funds and bankers.

British columnist Gerald Warner, among many others, observed that Obama's enemies are not terrorists trying to kill Americans and bring down the US but Americans themselves. Warner writes "Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens." Later he writes "His [Obama's] only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?"

Perhaps the answer to this question is simple and direct. It's because he has the most power over them. Iran can fight back... leave them alone. But when you have the media firmly in your side pocket, what are the odds that legal challenges to Obama's dictates will be successful? After all these years of "community organizing" now he has The Man right where he wants him.