Obama's pinatas

[Geee]

Chicago Tribune:


President Obama took it in stride when a hedge-fund manager and former law school classmate told him at a town-hall meeting last week that business executives feel like the president's been "whacking us with a stick."

Obama said he hasn't vilified business, he has tried to help business to thrive. The crowd at the event was skeptical.

The president ought to watch the tape from that meeting, which was put on by CNBC. He needs to recognize that a lot of business leaders do feel like Obama has been whacking them with a stick. We hear that from big business and small business. We hear it from Democrats in business, not just Republicans.

Obama has tried to draw a line between Main Street and Wall Street "fat cats," as Obama famously called them. Surely there are people on Wall Street, people whose greed and recklessness contributed to the frightening financial meltdown of 2008-2009, who deserve the whack.

Obama deserves credit for calmly steering the country through economic crisis in his first months in office. But it's disturbing that he now has lost the trust of Main Street business. These are people who weren't responsible for the meltdown. These are the people who will create the jobs that help the U.S. to recover.