I got a chuckle from Mark Gongloff’s Huffington Post piece on Jamie Dimon taking his anti-administration whining to the friendly confines of CNBC:
Dimon on Friday afternoon did his whining on CNBC, which has become a sort of Dr. Phil for aggrieved CEOs in the wake of the national catastrophe that is Obama’s reelection, according to CNBC. Dimon played some slow-pitch softball with America’s greatest journalist, Maria Bartiromo, who threw several fat pitches down the pike.
But the juiciest of all was when she asked him, for journalism, why Obama has such an “antagonistic relationship with business” and when we can expect our civilization to collapse because of it. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it…
As always, it is hard to know exactly what sort of “antagonist behavior” Dimon and Bartiromo are whining about. True, there was that one time Obama referred to “fat cat” bankers, which still keeps bankers up at night sobbing tears into their pillows full of money.
— Simon Johnson writes in The New York Times that it’s not wise to underestimate what Elizabeth Warren election to the Senate means for consumers and for the banks:
We should confront excessive market power, irrespective of the form that it takes.
We need a new trust-busting moment. And this requires elected officials willing and able to stand up to concentrated and powerful corporate interests. Empower the consumer – and figure out how this can get you elected.
Jamie Dimon, no dummy he, called up Warren last week to congratulate her on her election to the Senate.
The bankers bet it all on Romney and the Republicans this go-round. It will be fascinating to see how and whether that affects Obama’s stance toward Wall Street in his second term, starting with the replacement of bank-friendly Tim Geithner.
— The Wall Street Journal gives the Petraeus affair another bizarre turn with a scoop on the FBI agent who launched the investigation into Paula Broadwell’s emails:
However, supervisors soon became concerned that the initial agent might have grown obsessed with the matter, and prohibited him from any role in the investigation, according to the officials.
One official said the agent in question sent shirtless photos to (Jill) Kelley well before the email investigation began, and FBI officials only became aware of them some time later. Eventually, supervisors told the agent he was to have nothing to do with the case, though he never had a formal role in the investigation, the official said.
The agent, after being barred from the case, contacted a member of Congress, Washington Republican David Reichert, because he was concerned senior FBI officials were going to sweep the matter under the rug, the officials said. That information was relayed to top congressional officials, who notified FBI headquarters in Washington.
Kevin Drum notes that the NYT reports that “Because of his ‘worldview,’ as the official put it, he suspected a politically motivated cover-up to protect President Obama.”
But early this morning the scandal took yet another wild turn, and looks like it will take down the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan:
According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of “potentially inappropriate” e-mails between Allen and Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old Tampa woman whose close friendship with Petraeus ultimately led to his downfall. Allen, a Marine, succeeded Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.
Wow.
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.