“While speaking about her top political priorities, Ms. Palin gazed at her hand in a rather suspicious manner.”
“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’ ” said a top official at a major Wall Street firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the White House. “We are not going to play that game anymore.”
- a top official at a major Wall Street firm, talking about Washington’s attitude toward Wall Street, apparently without any sense of irony
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/us/politics/08lobby.html?hp
Last time I checked, the bailout was aimed at banks that engaged in brazenly risky behavior and then took taxpayer dollars to keep their businesses afloat. Many of them then turned those taxpayer dollars into massive executive bonuses - with the assertion that they were necessary to retain their most talented employees.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like the phrase “We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money” has been the tone from one side of the national conversation since roughly September of 2008, but it hasn’t been Washington uttering that phrase, it’s been Gordon Gekko.