Hey, Barack: Get Tough Like Michelle

Michelle Obama said her husband would be pulling garden weeds whether he “liked it or not”—and the president could take a page from her book, writes Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. Obama and the Treasury secretary “have been coddling the Wall Street elite,” and the banking bigwigs are taking advantage, heedlessly throwing money around like nothing’s changed.

Obama is worried that if he toughens up, “the spoiled Sherman McCoys will run away, the rescue plan will fail and the markets will wither.” Meanwhile, Citigroup’s CEO spent $10 million on his office, Fannie Mae’s handing execs million-dollar bonuses, and AIG passed billions to “high-flying insurees.” “It’s a time in America’s history where we need less smooth jazz and more martial brass,” Dowd writes.