Off the AP wire …

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee likened abortion to slavery in a Monday speech during a fundraiser for an anti-abortion group.

Huckabee said that when it abolished slavery, the U.S. debated and decided it was immoral for one person to have complete, life-or-death power over another. He said that should not change whether the control involves racial bigotry or a pregnant woman making a decision for her unborn child.

I thought it was about owning people.

There’s an eye-opening, perhaps eye-popping, article in tomorrow’s Journal (“Obama Dials Down Wall Street Criticism”), the gist of which is that over the last three months Obama and his team have learned that they’ve got to start respecting Wall Street and the big banks if they want to get anything done. As Monica Langley describes it, the Obama team went in with a dim view of Wall Street, didn’t bring the big bankers in on key policy decisions etc. But now they’re realizing they have to play ball. And this is in part why the markets gave a good reception to today’s Geithner plan.

Things were coming along until the AIG blow up almost overturned the applecart. Here’s the article’s concluding graf …

Bankers were shell-shocked, especially when Congress moved to heavily tax bonuses. When administration officials began calling them to talk about the next phase of the bailout, the bankers turned the tables. They used the calls to lobby against the antibonus legislation, Wall Street executives say. Several big firms called Treasury and White House officials to urge a more reasonable approach, both sides say. The banks’ message: If you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our bonuses.

I’m not here to criticize the article because I’m not clear that what it’s reporting isn’t true. At the same time, it reads almost like it’s about some alternate universe.

Rather than comment, I’d rather hear your take. It’s not behind their subscriber wall. So you don’t need a subscription.

Give it a read. Am I reading it right? What do you make of it?

Late Update: Noam Scheiber says that “Josh Marshall expresses amazement in response [to the Journal article] –presumably at the idea that Obama would cozy up to the people who inflicted so much damage on the economy in the first place.” Alas, I hope I did not write so unclearly. My surprise at the article is its assumption about who holds the whip hand in this relationship — the White House and Treasury or the execs and the big banks. And secondarily, whether the White House has beat some sort of hasty retreat from its earlier stands.

According to the Post’s A1 story tomorrow, the administration is ‘considering asking Congress’ (i.e., this is a trial balloon) to give the Treasury Secretary powers to seize non-bank financial institutions: in other words, the Lehman Brotherses and AIGs of the financial world.

Also in the background is the emerging debate about what government agency is going to take on the new role as ‘systemic risk regulator’ — the Fed? or some new agency yet to be created. This is an issue that Elana Schor has been writing about at TPMDC. And it seems to be swirling in the background in the spat between the White House and Sen. Dodd.

Finally, there’s this …

Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG’s most troubled unit.

Breaking contracts covers a lot of territory. So it would be very interesting to see some more detail on this front. But one of the fundamental problems that has hobbled the government’s response is that companies that by rights should go through bankruptcy can’t go through bankruptcy (or at least that’s what many believe) because of the shock to the rest of the financial sector. So perhaps this would give regulators more options.

An active news day: Geithner and Bernanke testifying on the Hill this morning at 10 ET, and Obama’s second primetime press conference tonight at 8 ET. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.

Andrew Ross Sorkin reports today that Goldman Sachs is going to pay all its TARP money quickly. The idea being that they’re tired of federal interference and oversight. And paying it off will mean they’re back on their own. But of course Goldman Sachs got substantially more money, roughly $13 billion from the AIG bailout, and there are numerous others programs, including but not limited to, loan guarantees that Goldman has used to stay afloat over the last six months. So the idea that simply paying back the TARP money means they’re back on their own is really a crock.

We’ll be bringing you more on this shortly. But over recent days I’ve seen several good write-ups detailing the lengthy list of federal aid Goldman has received. If you can think of good write-ups like that, please send them in asap and we’ll add them to the mix.

Everyone keeps quoting a certain Wall Street honcho on how great Geithner’s bank plan is — without mentioning that said honcho was one of the originators of the idea.

Stiglitz not liking the Geithner plan, either:

“Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don’t think it’s going to work because I think there’ll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer.”

Fed Chair Bernanke has now added his support for new legislation giving the Treasury the power of take over failing major non-bank financial institutions and a set of tools, short of outright takeover, for limiting the risk they pose to the rest of the economy. What’s interesting in this discussion is that the advocates — Bernanke and Geithner — appear to be saying explicitly that had these powers existed last fall the Treasury could have and should have taken over AIG, rather than keeping it on life support and paying out all its obligations at full dollar value.