Not the Bonus Amounts, But the Driver's Seat in the Balance

Josh Marshall underscores why the AIG crisis is Obama's first significant crisis of leadership:

the real issue of who's in control, and whose interests are being served, cuts through every dollar we've dedicated to this project. And when you look closely at the much bigger AIG counter-party issue, the same disconnect is there every bit as much as it is with the bonuses.

Whether Geithner and Summers are too close to the people on Wall Street, either through interest or affinity, is an interesting and possibly important question. But fundamentally Obama needs to start showing that he's in charge, that he's operating as the American people's advocate and that he has the power to do it -- which these stories of getting jacked up by some Gordon Gecko wannabes in London just terribly undermines.

Past the issue of amounts of money is indeed the issue of power and who exactly is going to control the flow of our money. If Obama does not the Geckos of the world will.