William K. Black on Wealth Managers' and Bankers' Support of Tax-Cut Deal

And look at who else (besides David Brooks) is crowing about the president's "very good week" (never mind the DADT failure this same week, and the president's refusal to move on eradication of discrimination in the military from the outset of his presidency): as economics professor William K. Black reports at Huffington Post today, the Obama administration has set up a website to justify its tax-cut deal.  And the people it's solicited to praise the tax deal?  "Wealth managers" and bankers.

Black writes:

You know the administration is desperate when it creates a web page citing economists who support its capitulation on taxes.  . . .  The administration thinks it says good things that the Bush administration's principal apologist for its tax cuts for the wealthy supports Obama's agreement to extend those tax cuts. The mind boggles.  . . .  All of these endorsements simply emphasize the extent to which Obama was taken to the cleaners. It's bad to be bullied, but it's pathetic to cite the testimonials of those that got even wealthier through the bullies' triumph as evidence of your success.

I've been characterizing this president's leadership style as principles-lite.  But the more I read about the shameless attempt of the administration to spin its sell-out to the Republicans and the very rich as a Santa Claus gift of munificent largesse to everyone, which enriches all of us at the same time that it puts even more money into the pockets of the already filthy rich, the more inclined I am to conclude that this administration and its leaders have no real principles at all.

No real principles other than doing the bidding of the wealthy and powerful.  And rolling their supporters, while delighting in the pain they produce as they do this, since that pain is the one indicator they can find in their otherwise morally pusillanimous behavior to suggest that they're big, tough macho men.  And feathering their own nests, assuring that, whatever comes down the pike for them politically, they'll still have a cushy place to return to in the corporate structures ruling the nation, once they're out of office.  

The failure of DATA repeal has everything to do with the moral vacuity of the tax cut deal.  Mr. Obama never had any real intent of tackling the human rights issues of gay citizens, because he has no real commitment to human rights, period.  And he does not intend to pay any political price for any of the lavish promises he made to support human rights on the campaign trail, and to help heal the deep wounds inflicted on the nation by several decades of neo-conservative dominance.

To the contrary, he's making the wounds much deeper.  And is assuring the final triumph of the neo-conservative dominance that has gotten us into the dark pit in which we now find ourselves.