As Mr. Obama announced his new “bogeyman” to “turn public attention away from what they’re doing wrong in the administration” he sunk one of the few healthy sectors left in our economy, financial services. Over the past two days, the Dow Industrials took a loss of about 335 points, largely from the banking sector.

Clearly, Mr. Obama is seeking to use populist rhetoric as a deflection for recent Democrat electoral losses and the growing unpopularity of his administration. This is one of the few plausible explanations for his curiously timed speech yesterday. That is an especially salient point considering the House Financial Services Committee has for some time now been in the process of examining various related reforms. Witness Chairman Barney Frank’s statement yesterday;

“I welcome the President’s strong support for additional provisions in the financial reform legislation to address the too big to fail problem. The President’s initiatives build on provisions that originated in the House Financial Services Committee and were included in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which passed the House on December 11.”

Mr. Obama’s actions are also vexing since it was the banking sector that was largely forced to take support from the government. I can advise from accounts provided to me personally, that several other institutions including Wells Fargo and Bank of America did not want TARP money, but were cajoled into taking it. Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis lost his job for exposing this heavy handed, double dealing. That was his reward for building one of the most profitable companies in America. Now Mr. Obama wants to go back to the well and grab some more scalps. The problem is, our populace now has a growing disaffection with Mr. Obama and Democrats. They want action, not rhetoric which brings us to Mr. McCain. From today’s Wall Street Journal article;

“But in a political environment decidedly hostile to big banks, Democrats might need only a few Republican votes to enact a variant of what Mr. Obama called “the Volcker rule.” Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, said the White House appears to be moving closer to a proposal he is co-sponsoring that would reinstate restrictions on banks that were repealed in the late 1990s. “It seems to me that a number of the proposals [Mr. Obama] has move in that direction,” Sen. McCain said, “but I haven’t had a chance to examine the details.”

Message to Sarah Palin; you want to campaign for Mr. McCain’s reelection because….?