Yes. Remember the teabagger movement really started as a response to the Wall Street bailouts. If you go back to earlier this year when people were out protesting in New York's financial district you'll see a confluence of left and right wingers who agree on little except that normal people were getting screwed.

Anger over the AIG bonus payments was also not restricted to the usual left/right dynamic.

At a certain point the left right schism did take hold on issues like healthcare, taxation, etc. but the original complaint was that the Obama administration favored Wall Street over Main Street the same way the Bush administration did and that Wall Street is now going back to business as usual, its elites having suffered very little for cratering the nation's economy.

There was no one "fatal error". Beck and Limbaugh have a large built-in audience of cultural right fanatics who are determined to hate whatever smarty pants liberals do, no matter what it is.

If Obama had taken on the financial industry, they would now be screaming about how Obama is a communist who hates the engine of capitalism.

Yeah, I think Rush would have screamed about Obama no matter what.

There's no doubt that a clearer response to the financial crisis would have been better, but the bailout deal was pretty much set up by the time Obama entered office. The TARPies made sure of that, and they also made sure that Obama would be the bagholder--the guy seemingly, but not really in charge as the Grinches stole Christmas 2008.

Rolling back the Oligarchs is going to be a long project. We've barely begun.

I still find it amusing how so many liberals state without a moment of hesitation that Republicans are "scum." When one party has an undivided government, it's natural that the minority party is going to do everything in its power to undermine the majority party.

That's how politics has always worked in this country.

Does that mean after the mid term elections of 2002, when the GOP earned an undivided government, that the Democrats were all "scum" for trying to thwart the efforts of the Bush administration?

Yes. It does.

Furthermore, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh only POSE as populists, but the only people who actually believe they ARE populists are their steadfast followers. The rest of us aren't that stupid.

One of the problems that Democrats have always suffered from is an acute sense of arrogance. The party as a whole is absolutely convinced that everything it does is "right" and "just" and the GOP is nothing more than a group of scumbags out to ruin everything.

This, despite the fact that there are more registered Republicans in the United States than Democrats and there are far more red states than blue states.

My point here is to demonstrate that there are a lot of different people in this country that have diverging opinions. A lot of those people don't want to see the Obama administration spend money recklessly while concurrently growing the Federal Government to a size never before seen in the history of the country. Democrats need to at least acknowledge this instead of thinking everyone opposed to Obama is on some sort of witch hunt.

The error is thinking that anyone on Wall Street would have been jailed for this if we had what the Left considers a truly Liberal president. I'm sure there are Dems in Congress who say they would, but they never have to back up their talk with action.

The Obama, who won an election by treating America to a year-long self-help seminar and then made off with the registration fees . . . . IOZ

Who are these people who should be prosecuted and what crimes would you charge them with? I'd like to hear some names and offences from you. Madoff was obviously guilty as hell. Who else do you have in mind?

I ask this not to be snarky but because my understanding is that most of the destructive behavior on Wall Street's part was in fact legal. This is a big problem but not one that can be solved by prosecuting individual bankers. So please do elaborate if you believe you can identify criminals.

You hit a triple Jon.
Just add the five hedge funds that withdrew the billions in September 08 from the Federal Reserve the caused the panic..oh yea they where funded by the same unions retirement funds that supported the big "O".

Interesting. The focus of the article is pondering where Obama went wrong. Yet, when insight is offered -- but doesn't coincide with what this community wants to hear -- a demeaning post immediately appears.

And yes, the bailouts started it. The deep alliance with the unions brought it into focus. And the arrogance is fine tuning the picture. Perhaps you can pass along a newsflash to our President: You won . . . stop giving campaign speeches and start leading. A good portion of the country didn't realize they were electing a Speech-Giver-in-Chief.

I'll give you a final clue as to where the anger is coming from. When you think it's a wise course of action to use a vulgar term -- teabaggers -- to label ordinary people (yeah, I know, you don't believe it) and you laugh it up like pimply-faced adolescents about how funny and clever you are . . . and an article cannot be written and a comment cannot be posted without using that vulgar term to describe protesting middle-class boomers and fixed-income senior citizens, you simply add fuel to the fire.

Keep it up . . . what started as a burning ember has turned into a raging forest fire. In the end, the orchestrated teabagger campaign didn't serve you well.