When I see the cacophony of protestations and indignations hurled at those poor golden boys at AIG, I am reminded of the words imparted to me by one of my wiser attendings. Advised of a ruinous result suffered by a patient on a fellow professor’s service and the subsequent recriminations offered up by that physician, my attending made an insightful observation. He remarked that some held the position that when something went wrong, quickly move to determine who was at fault – and make certain everyone knows it wasn’t you!

            Thus we are witness to a great opera unfolding along the banks of the Potomac. The government, having spent twenty years encouraging people to take out loans they could ill afford and coercing banks to give out said loans when they knew better, now seeks to cast blame for the natural result in every direction - except toward itself.

            The title of the favorite aria of this piece seems to be “The Greed of Everyone” – that is of everyone who is not in government. The lyrics detail the crimes of bankers, stockbrokers, and all the usual capitalist suspects. The plot jumps around a good bit, keeping the audience dizzy, but it finally comes to the final act where the heroic savior – the bureaucrat -  steps in and puts to sword the evil doers and sets all aright in the kingdom.

            The Broadway version was entitled “The Merchant of Menace”. Though encumbered with the same vacuous plot, it had the advantage of not being so loud.

            The point of all this noise is that if our hero blames everyone else long enough and loud enough, people become disenchanted with the whole spectacle. They quickly lose interest, pull out their programs, and start reading the advertisements. At that point, no one notices when our hero runs back stage to rob the ticket booth. Our hero then returns, wearing a Brooks Brother suit, and rides through the audience in a gold plated topless hybrid, tossing money to the overjoyed mob.