Late last week, just as the SEC announced its stunning fraud charges against Goldman Sachs (GS), the president s campaign group, Organizing for America, emailed thousands of followers asking them to support his efforts for more financial regulations. Wall Street titans still recklessly speculate with borrowed money, Obama warns in the email, directing readers to sign a petition supporting his effort to Rein in Wall Street abuses.

I m sure it was mere coincidence that Obama s address to the nation this weekend was entitled Holding Wall Street Accountable, in which he explicitly blames the financial industry for the economic collapse.

Blaming Wall Street for the nation s financial woes has become a commonly accepted smear. When fraudster Bernie Madoff was sentenced to life in prison for his $65 billion Ponzi scheme, the Los Angeles Times headline blared, A Strong Message to Wall Street. Last fall when the House passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn t mince words: "We are sending a clear message to Wall Street: the party is over.

Imagine that Madoff and (at least according to the SEC) Goldman Sachs weren t Wall Street frauds, but abusive parents convicted for beating up their children. Would the president call for a petition drive to rein in parental abuses ? Would he ask supporters to sign a petition holding parents accountable"?

Of course not. He d regard it as incredibly unfair to treat parents in general as potential child abusers. Yet he and other elected officials now regularly condemn Wall Street, that is, the American investment community, as fraudulent shysters, and nobody says a word.

Who is Wall Street ? The president s email, and message, is purposely vague: banks, traders, lenders, insurers, analysts, brokers, and funds are routinely attacked under the catch-all Wall Street. All are now routinely impugned as the folks who created this mess, even those who had nothing to do with the financial crisis, didn t want or accept TARP money and actually perform vital (financial) jobs. All are smeared as criminal con artists responsible for wrecking the economy.

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This blanket condemnation is used as the justification for even more government control over finance, exactly the ad hominem strategy utilized over health care. Escalating medical costs were blamed on the insurance industry greedily lining their pockets with profits while screwing policy holders at every opportunity.

The result is a broadly negative view of businessmen as a class and finance as a profession; they are collectively vilified in ways that no other group of individuals is. According to a recent Harris poll, barely half of adults now believe Wall Street is a net benefit to the country, down from 80% in the late 1990s. Only 31% believe that those who work on Wall Street are as honest as those who do not.

Nearly 45 years ago philosopher Ayn Rand identified businessmen, including those who work in finance, as the distinguished symbols of a free and prosperous society. All the other social groups workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars.

Makes one wonder why they ve even bothered filing charges against Goldman Sachs. In today s culture, the verdict s already in.