Al Giordano: " The Day the CEOs Were Called to the Principal's Office" (with video)

Al Giordano: with video from Politico (05:12).

Hey, remember last week when the Poutrage Club was up in arms that the White House had announced that the President of the United States would hold a meeting with financial industry CEOs?

David Sirota, for example, obviously wasn’t at the meeting, but that didn’t stop him from declaring to gullible readers that he knew what had happened. “Just a few days ago,” he wrote, “Wall Street executives were hosted at the White House for a cheery photo op and reassurance that they will be getting hundreds of billions more in no-strings-attached bailout cash.”

Well, lookie here: Eamon Javers of Politico reports – citing four sources who were at the meeting - that the session was anything but:

President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

Oh, do tell us more:

The titans of finance — men used to being the most powerful man in almost any room — sized up a new president who made clear in ways big and small that he expected them to change their ways.

There were signs from the outset that this was a business event, not a social gathering. At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president, which typically happens at ceremonial White House gatherings but not at serious strategy sessions.

“The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water,” says a person who attended the meeting…

The president described the financial system as still “fragile” and asked for cooperation from the CEOs. But he also told them he wouldn’t shy away from regulatory reform. Obama wrapped up his remarks and threw the conversation open to the table, saying, “So, who’d like to talk?”…

The Politico story – again, based on real reporting – concluded:

It had been a landmark day in the history of American capitalism. Unbeknownst to the financial executives, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner was also on Pennsylvania Avenue that day, meeting with Obama’s auto bailout task force. Although the finance CEOs got a meeting with the president, Wagoner saw only Obama’s senior advisor Steven Rattner at the Treasury Department. During the meeting, Rattner demanded Wagoner’s resignation.

It had been a tough day for CEOs in the nation’s capital.

Read the whole thing. It will make you smile.

When bloggers and big media pundits alike make grand proclamations that they know what happens behind closed doors, without having done the reporting and digging to find out, set your BS detectors to high: they almost always get it wrong.

They’re so focused on symbolism and thus they misread the situation. Similar poutrage was registered earlier this year because the President had held a meeting with conservative “blue dog” Democrats in Congress but had not yet invited the newly formed “Progressive Caucus." Some saw that as a diss, as if meetings confer mere attaboys, autographs and Snausages.

But when getting an invitation to the White House can be akin to being called to the principal’s office (or in the case of the GM CEO, expulsion from school), it seems that some folks’ presumptions keep ending them up with bass ackwards conclusions.

One can imagine the looks on their faces if one day the B-list bloggers finally get an invitation to the White House. They'll be jitterbugging in the endzone, fantasizing that the President has finally seen the light and will ask their permission from then on out before he makes any and every move. But upon entering and seeing the water glasses, they would suddenly they then realize that something else might be up.

That’s not so far fetched, actually. It kind of happened a couple years ago, when then-Senator Obama took some blogosphere voices for task over the "tone" of certain postings. (And still, today, you can almost match bloggers' tones and styles with their relative optimism or pessimism about the moves being made by the new administration.)

After all, if the childish petulance of the Wall Street CEOs - and the consequences of such behavior - got them such a frosty reception from the Oval Office, who else has been behaving just like them?

The Politico story came out today. One wonders if those that got the story wrong with their made-up accounts will ever issue corrections.

Howie P.S.: Here's the video (05:12) from Politico of the bank CEOs, after the meeting at the White House.

Barack Obama