Stop Bashing Obama Over Paid Wall Street Speeches

OK, so Barack Obama, less than 100 days out of the White House, has agreed – according to Fox Business, quoting sources within Cantor Fitzgerald LP – to give a speech at the firm’s health-care conference later this year. For this, Obama is apparently going to be paid $400,000. The former president hasn’t confirmed this himself, and even if it turns out to be true, he may still withdraw. But talking heads everywhere are already attacking his decision. The newest Fox News superstar, Tucker Carlson, insisted it was "indefensible."

Except it isn’t. Obama should be praised, for two reasons: first, for refusing to buy the notion that there is something inherently corrupt about delivering a paid speech; and second, for recognizing that channels of communication between finance and centrist politics continue to be important, even in this age of angry populism.