I've been thinking about this a lot and have drawn the following conclusions (so far).
-- While it's not up to Taibbi or anyone else to present every single aspect of an issue within an article, it's important to underscore political considerations when it comes to Wall Street. Part of the climate of Washington being gamed for the financials and the stock market is due to the media focus on short-term indicators as a measure of political success. For example, 10 months ago, the wingnut talkers as well as the usual Halperin village hacks were correlating the DJIA and the Obama administration (remember the "Obama Bear Market"). In fact, we're all guilty of using the Dow as a political indicator in one way or another. Consequently, politicians will tend to focus on Wall Street in the same way they do polling or fund raising.
-- A year ago, Wall Street was crumbling. The people with money in the stock market, whether in the form of 401(k)s or stocks or both, are typically older Americans. Older Americans vote more often than younger Americans. If older Americans are angry because their retirement has evaporated, they're going to take it out on the party in power. So they tend to get more attention. Hence another reason for trying fix/game/help Wall Street.
-- We don't really know yet whether the Obama administration has brought in Wall Street people to both fix and regulate Wall Street (insiders know all the tricks) or simply to open up new loopholes for nefarious activity to continue. But it would be naive to suggest that it's exclusively one or the other. In fact, it's not even that cut and dry. Some fixes will look like giveaways and some regulations will look like fixes and some loopholes will look like regulations. This is why airtight reporting is necessary this early on. Politics, especially when it comes to reform, regulations and finance, aren't always straightforward.
-- Related, the Obama administration has set a goal of regulating Wall Street. The president, in fact, was emphatic about this in his weekly address yesterday. But it's doing so in an environment in which Wall Street has obvious and considerable power. In this respect, Taibbi, Kevin Drum and others are absolutely on the right track in terms of keeping an incredulous eye on the administration. However, I take issue with painting the Obama administration with the same brush we'd use against a far-right administration. Screaming phrases like "worse than Bush" and "sell out" will generate a lot of traffic, but they're simply not true.
-- I hate to sound like I'm dittoing anyone, but I really do believe that Geithner and Summers have a specific -- and very temporary -- role to play, and then they have to go. I would throw Emanuel into this mix as well. And if Rubin is really a Wall Street Rasputin, gaming policy in favor of Goldman Sachs, then he absolutely needs to be fired and investigated.
-- Clearly, the mindset of Reaganomics is alive. But it's on the run and crushing it will never happen quickly enough. It's just important to keep in mind that, much like healthcare reform, it's going to be a work in progress. 30 years of awful economic policy can't be reversed in a couple of years and it won't happen without mistakes.
That's all for now. Ultimately, nothing is so clear cut as it looks, especially during an unprecedented recession. The solutions will necessarily be as complicated, frustrating and twisted as the causes of the crisis itself.