tbf@277: “what are you gonna do about it, make my day, I’ve got minions”

There’s a lot of that going around. I was puzzled at the recent resignation/termination-for-cause of David Sokol from Berkshire Hathaway. If one wants to ask a “why” question try this: why would anyone in his right mind, with the proper professional credentials, abandon a future of stability, security, and comfort for himself, his family, his grandkids, and several generations out for nothing but a rookie-level ‘mistake’? I’m not buying ‘mistake.’ I think what we saw in grave detail was the persistence of an attitude of entitlement and immunity from prosecution among the western elite. It is nothing less than a trend-line, which, if not reversed, will lead to populist revolt, ‘fueled’ by an energy transition that will impact lower to middle classes first and hardest. Private planes can be scaled down. Clunkers not so easily.

To paraphrase a fellow billionaire, Leona Helmsley, that’s for people who don’t have minions.

I agree with EB@89 although perhaps with an attitudinal twist. The circumstances surrounding Obama’s birth are likely to be embarrassing, at a minimum awkward, in a very personal sense. In a professional sense, they encroach on his biographical narrative with predictable consequences for a public figure of consequence.