BACHMANN’S ODD ATTEMPT TO TIE OBAMA TO WALL STREET…. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) expected to hold a big Tax Day rally in South Carolina today, but it didn’t go well. More interesting to me, though, is what she said at the event.
Michele Bachmann’s much anticipated Tax Day rally on Monday was a “dud” that drew a paltry 300 people in Columbia, S.C., according to reports.
Bachmann met privately with South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley ahead of her speech to the small crowd in the Palmetto state’s capital.
The Minnesota congressman rallied the tea party supporters with a call to block Washington from raising the debt ceiling and attacked Barack Obama for being too close to Wall Street.
One local reporter said “politicians, political operatives and members of the media came close to outnumbering attendees” at the event. Ouch.
But I’m fascinated by the notion that the unhinged GOP lawmaker believes the president is too close to Wall Street.
Bachmann may not have heard about this, but Wall Street tends to hate the president. Politico reported not too long ago that Wall Street hates Obama and his team with “an almost irrational passion,” as bankers and their lobbyists regard the administration “with a disdain so thick it often blurs to naked loathing.”
And why is that? It probably has something to do with the fact that Obama successfully pushed a major Wall Street reform package though Congress, with the most sweeping rule changes and new safeguards since the Great Depression. This White House has also been willing to blame the financial industry for its colossal mistakes — the ones that almost destroyed global capitalism, and very nearly caused a catastrophic meltdown of international markets.
It was Bachmann’s party, meanwhile, that huddled with hedge fund managers and industry lobbyists to try to kill Wall Street reform, offering to trade campaign contributions for weaker layers of accountability, and then vowing to repeal the new safeguards.
And it was Bachmann who personally voted as Wall Street preferred when the reforms reached the House floor.
Bachmann “attacked Barack Obama for being too close to Wall Street”? Seriously? I realize her rhetoric tends to be pretty nutty, but even Bachmann should be able to do better than this.
