It’s not easy being a Wall Street gazillionaire these days
By Greg Sargent

Nick Confessore of the New York Times has a big story in the forthcoming Sunday magazine about Obama’s sour relations with Wall Street and the impact it’s having on fundraising.

Buried in the story is an extraordinary anecdote: Wall Streeters are so upset about Obama’s harsh populist rhetoric that they privattely called on him to make amends with a big speech — like his oration on race — designed to heal the wounds of class warfare in this country.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina recently met with a group of Wall Street donors, and they gave him an earful:

For the next hour, the donors relayed to Messina what their friends had been saying. They felt unfairly demonized for being wealthy. They felt scapegoated for the recession…

Greg clinches it…

Where to begin? Wall Street excess helped lead to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, inflicting untold economic suffering on millions and millions of Americans. In both rhetorical and substantive terms, the Obama administration’s response was by any reasonable measure moderate and restrained. Indeed, Obama clearly viewed himself as a buffer between Wall Street and rising populist passion, telling a group of bankers in April of 2009: “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”