Dear bankers

This intense vilification of bankers has got to stop. Not because it's distracting the country from its intense vilification of Octo-Mom. Not because too many innocent, hard-working financial professionals are being forced to write resignation letters to The New York Times. And not because widespread populist outrage is causing a glut of spittle-flecked blogs and tweets. Although one of those things is pretty disgusting. (The New York Times? Ick.)

No, it's got to stop because it's just so ... old.

The time has come to move on. It's true that bankers, with the connivance of insufficiently attentive Fed chairmen and pathetically unqualified homebuyers, caused the crisis now visiting grief upon everyone making more than $250,000 a year.

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But along with insouciant regulators and loser mortgagors, bankers have become an easy target. It's like shooting fish in a barrel that contains nothing but Mrs. Paul's Crispy Battered Fillets -- entertaining at first, but ultimately pointless unless the barrel gets a retention bonus.

With all the attention being paid to bankers, many more enticing villains are being undeservedly ignored by the mass approbation movement. We really need to refocus our collective antipathy. And please -- this doesn't mean everyone has permission to start excoriating Octo-Mom again.

What it does mean is that we all have to find a new group -- animal, vegetable or mineral -- rich and-or powerful enough to constitute worthy targets of our revulsion, yet so thoroughly unlikable that would-be defenders are pretty much limited to inanimate objects, such as Lou Dobbs.

This time, let's be original. There's no point in recycling the usual list of public enemies.

Right off the bat, we can eliminate the following former objects of popular wrath: Steroidal outfielders, Bernie Madoff, sharks, Daily Kos, steroidal infielders, Eliot Spitzer, anthrax, Michael Phelps, steroidal pitchers, Merlot, that guy who was dating Anne Hathaway, private jets, trans fats, Prince Harry, Alaska, Coldplay, Blago, robots, credit default swaps, Whole Foods and airline pilots not nicknamed "Sully."

Actually, that's quite a steroidal list. Turns out, we're not ignoring very many odious creeps. Who knew that our capacity for loosely organized, yet highly focused pique was so vast?

In any event, it looks as though only two potential quarries have been spared the enmity of an enraged citizenry: Brussels sprouts and Larry Kudlow.

Either one will work. Because, really, the point is to leave the bankers alone. Bankers can, and should, play a productive role in rebuilding the shattered economy. The same cannot be said for Brussels sprouts and Larry Kudlow. After all, one is a foul, barely palatable life form whose very name is a metaphor for bad taste. The other grows in dirt.

The feeling here is that we should go after Brussels sprouts. Kudlow can be rendered inoffensive through the liberal application of ketchup.

So enough of the blogging, tweeting, tea-partying, Galt-going and whatever vaguely perverted thing we did to credit default swaps. Brussels sprouts are far worse. They represent a clear and present danger to the republic. They are quite possibly socialists. Even worse, the word around the blogosphere is that Brussels sprouts forged a birth certificate so no one would know they are actually European.

It's settled. From now on, we direct all our invective at Brussels sprouts. Maybe they don't keep insisting that they are financial experts despite being consistently wrong. And maybe they don't believe that despite their quite visible failures they still deserve huge compensation packages and the nation's continued trust and admiration. Brussels sprouts are still worse than bankers, because ... because ... ah, to hell with it. Let's just go with Kudlow.

It doesn't really matter. We just have to stop insulting the bankers. You know that if we keep up the vitriol, they'll all run away to join the circus. And while that kind of response might benefit the economy as a whole, it will wreak havoc on the circus sector.

Anyway. Did you hear the latest about Octo-Mom? Turns out, she feeds her kids pureed Brussels sprouts while "Kudlow & Company" blares in the kitchen. Well ... that's just ... of all the ... who does she think she is?

Dear New York Times,

You may have noticed the spittle flecks ...

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