December 16, 2009--Stood Up

On April 11, 1962 President John Kennedy, before convening the CEOs at the White House for a dressing down about their concerted effort to raise steel prices, issued the following statement:

Simultaneous and identical actions of United States Steel and other leading steal corporations increasing steel prices by some $6 a ton constitute a wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance of the public interest. In this serious hour in our Nation's history when we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and their families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives--and four were killed in the last two days in Viet Nam and asking union members to hold down their wage requests at a time when restraint and sacrifice are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard, as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.

In a few days, the companies began to roll back the price increase.

Two days ago, President Obama summoned to the White House the CEOs of the nation’s largest banks and financial institutions. To put pressure on them to increase the number of loans they make to small and mid-size businesses. He told them that with taxpayer TARP money they had been bailed out, saved from the brink of bankruptcy which had been the result of their own irresponsible practices. To their faces he did not call them “fat-cat bankers” as he had referred to them the night before on “60 Minutes.”

Perhaps he should have, considering the tepid public response by those who showed up for his meeting. I say “showed up” because four of those invited had the audacity not to. Three claimed they couldn’t make it because their commercial flights from New York were fog bound (Lloyd C. Blankfein the CEO of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup) and the fourth, Vikram Pandit, Citigroup CEO, stood up President Obama because, as he said, he had another, more urgent meeting. That meeting was about Citi’s paying back the final $20 billion they owe us so that he could get on with the more important business of giving himself and his senior executives their salary increases and bonuses unfettered by governmental oversight.

Splendid, just splendid.

I can only imagine what JFK would have said. Unfortunately, when the White House patched Blankfein, Mack, and Parsons through to the meeting by speakerphone, Obama managed only to mutter, “Well, I appreciate you guy calling in.” (See New York Times article linked below.)

He did not say, “Where the f*** are you? You couldn’t take Amtrak? You couldn’t come down the night before? Well, guess what, you’re toast. I’m coming at you every day until you guys begin making loans. If necessary, I’ll turn Glenn Beck’s pitchfork people loose on you. I and they know where you live.”

And while he was at it, he should have stalked into the Press Room at the White House and said something like the following about Joe Lieberman, who has flip-flopped again about his vote on health care reform. This time, he’s again against it though a few days ago he was again for the very same thing in it (expanding Medicare eligibility to cover more of the uninsured) that he had been in favor of a few months ago.

“Joe,” he should have said, “I know the game you’re playing and you won’t get away with it. You’re pissed off that when you lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut you had to run as an Independent and most Democrats, me included, did not support you. Well, you got even with me by supporting John McCain for president. I never saw him on TV without you grinning at his side. That’s fine. I understand that. But I won and I thought we were even and I urged Majority Leader Reid not to take away your committee chairmanships. Now you’re trying to hold us up for ransom, trying to get all sorts of goodies for yourself by saying you’re going to join the Republican filibuster of the bill that will save tens of thousands of lives every year.

“After I leave this room,” Obama should have said, “I am going back to my office. You know, the one shaped like an oval, and call Harry Reid and urge him to strip you not only of your chairmanships but also your place in the Democratic caucus. And later today I will be calling the Democratic Party chairman in your home state and with her we will begin a process to attract a terrific person to run against you when you come up for reelection in less than three years. And I will take the personal lead to raise all the money that candidate will need to run you out of town.

“And I will ask Senator Reid to begin the process of passing a health care reform bill by the Reconciliation process. A process that requires only a 51-vote majority in the Senate. So begin to pack your bags. Your days in the Senate are over.”

Unless we see some of this kind of tough leadership, I am fearing that Barack Obama is the one who is in danger of being run out of town.