FBN's Resident Tough Guy Charles Gasparino Strains Arm Patting Self on Back

A lesser man than Charles Gasparino would have caved to the I-Man’s whining that he phoned in for today’s appearance from what Imus presumed was a “soiled mattress surrounded by old food cartons.” Luckily, Gasparino ain’t afraid of the urban cowboy, threatening to kick his butt in a moment of delight for Imus’s staff and audience alike.

Gasparino’s role as senior correspondent at the Fox Business Network requires a certain amount of ruthlessness, and it is therefore a role for which he is perfectly suited. He unabashedly called President Obama’s speech to Wall Street yesterday “lackluster,” and “the same old stuff.”

“He said that the only people who would be against this bill would be people who have businesses that are into bilking other people,” said Gasparino. “So, you must be a crook if you don’t support this bill.”

Contained within Obama’s proposed financial regulatory reform bill is a bailout fund, which Gasparino thinks is the most egregious provision.

“It codifies the notion of ‘too big to fail’ into law,” he said, noting that the idea of the federal government bailing out troubled banks is what got the U.S. into its current mess. “When you believe you have that backup, you’ll take enormous risks.”

That concept was one of the main points in Gasparino’s book The Sellout, which Imus might have read if his guest thought enough of this program to come in the studio today.

“I read Vicky Ward’s book,” said Imus, doing his best impression of a three-year old. “The one that’s on the New York Times Bestseller list. It has juicy stuff in it about people have sex with people they’re not married to, and taking drugs.”

Gasparino apologized for paying due attention to things like systemic risk and the implosion of the financial system, which he admitted is boring crap.

Though big banks have relied on the federal government to bail them out in the past, Gasparino warned of the future dangers of creating a bailout fund. “Over time, people are going to forget what happened in 2008 and 2007, and the damage it caused in 2009 and 2010,” he said. “We’re going to forget about that in three years, or Wall Street will, because they have very short memories and they like to take a lot of risk.”

Like the peace that has always eluded the Middle East, Imus believes Wall Street will forever be dirty, no matter what measures are put in place, or by whom. Even a bank like Goldman Sachs, whose reputation has heretofore been better than some of its peers, is not immune to scandal, having been charged by the SEC last week of fraud.

“The best interpretation you can have for what went on is that they’re just sleazeballs,” said Gasparino, referring to Goldman deliberately selling bad mortgages to clients so that a hedge fund could bet on their failure.

In case you haven’t heard, Gasparino did a lot of reporting on this story for both The Daily Beast and for Fox Business, which, Imus pointed out, would be his job.

“Act like you’ve done it before!” he scolded his guest, who admitted he’d felt better before picking up the phone this morning. In that case, Imus had one final suggestion.

“Why don’t you hang it up now?”

-Julie Kanfer