You can take the candidate out of Chicago but you can’t take Chicago out of the Oval Office

A former Congressional staffer, Whalen laments the politicizing of these events because the theatrics mask the bigger issue: "We can't control ourselves in terms of the fiscal functions of our government," he says. "We're a mess. We can't even have a process in place that is transparent and easy for people to understand. That's why we have a problem - this was all done in the dead of night."

We’ve seen and read enough in the wake of Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts to divine the Democratic strategy for 2010 and the approaching midterms: equal parts blame Bush and attacks on Wall St.

The attacks on Wall St. prong will be particularly interesting as the White House and the Democrats will leverage efforts to reform regulation governing the financial giants against Republicans, conservatives and the tea party movement. The response to the pushback against the clearly naked political ploy of demonizing Wall St. will be who’s side are you on, Wall St. or Main St?

That is why the Republicans would be wise to get out in front of this issue and craft a reform plan of their own so they cannot be painted into a corner. We encourage you to read B-Daddy’s piece here on some sensible reform measures for our “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions.

As to the overall strategy of whining about Bush and demonizing Wall St., neither of which will be doing a damn bit of good to improve the economic situation in this country, you should not be surprised as this is simply the game plan of big city micro-politics applied at a national level.

Despite the visionary rhetoric of post-partisanship and moving beyond the Bush years we heard from candidate Obama, he is simply a product of his environment: a Harvard-educated dandy who made his bones in the brass-knuckle world of Chicago politics.

Expecting the President to open up his aperture to see the big picture for the long-term health of this country is spitting into the wind as it’s election season and political survival is paramount. Why anyone would expect anything else from the President and the Chicago hacks that have his ear in the White House is beyond us.