Remember a little phrase, "A government of laws, not of men"?

I'd guess that hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness, whose fund is going to court against the Obama administration Chrysler deal that offers his investors roughly a thirty-cents-on-the-dollar payback while privileging the UAW stake in the decomposing automobile manufacturer is not an incredibly popular person these days.

After all, our own President has joined in the demonization of virtually everone involved in the American financial system...

But give it to Asness, he's not a wimp. And in an open letter about the situation he's fighting back.

Some snippets:

"Let’s be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients’ money to share in the “sacrifice”, they are stealing."

"The President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out. Find me a hedge fund, even a failed one, that has asked for one. In fact, it was only because hedge funds have not taken government funds that they could stand up to this bullying. The TARP recipients had no choice but to go along."

"The President's attempted diktat takes money from bondholders and gives it to a labor union that delivers money and votes for him. Why is he not calling on his party to "sacrifice" some campaign contributions, and votes, for the greater good? Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power."

One of the things that the entire MSM has been more or less willing to ignore is that the Chrysler bail-out brokered by the administration violates existing bankruptcy law

Here's the problem with the new progressive populism now in vogue: it empowers you to place your ideology and your naked political interests above the law, just like the administration before you did.

Only the victims and the beneficiaries change.