President Zigzag: Barack Obama's Wall Street whiplash


By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 10/21/11 4:34 AM EDT

First, the White House signaled it would make anger toward Wall Street central to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. But then, Obama warned against demonizing all of Wall Street — only a few days before he sympathized with the Occupy Wall Street protesters who do exactly that.

And that’s just what the president and his team have said since Saturday.

The White House’s Wall Street whiplash stretches to the earliest days of the administration, with Obama conciliatory one minute and confrontational the next.

His zigzags between embracing the business community and vilifying it have shadowed his presidency, exposing him to charges from Wall Street that he’s out to get them and from liberals that he coddles Big Business. Based on his own statements, Obama himself can appear undecided about which way to go — an incoherence that has left both sides dissatisfied as he seeks reelection.

Three years into power, Obama’s message du jour pattern seems more consequential than merely clumsy communications. It speaks to a difficulty setting a clear strategy that by some lights has been central to his political challenges.

“In some ways, he’s lost both sides,â€