I was near a TV the other day when President Obama announced the Chrysler deal. I was not right by the TV, but I heard, or thought I heard, him talking about a group of people who had not been willing to sacrifice. "I do not stand with them," he said.

Having the Government manage bankruptcy proceedings and business plans gives me hives anyway, but this statement seemed a bit . . . well, like something a President normally doesn't say. It turns out that it was an open rebuke to people behaving within the law.

Let's start with this transcript of Detroit’s Frank Beckman’s morning talk show (WJR), from a May 1 interview with bankruptcy attorney Tom Lauria:

Lauria: Let me tell you it’s no fun standing on this side of the fence opposing the President of the United States. In fact, let me just say, people have asked me who I represent. That’s a moving target. I can tell you for sure that I represent one less investor today than I represented yesterday. One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under the threat that the full force of the White House Press Corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight. That’s how hard it is to stand on this side of the fence.

Beckman: Was that Perella Weinberg?

Lauria: That was Perella Weinberg.

That's a startling accusation. Granted, it's being made by a lawyer who is trying to gain sympathy for his clients.

The increasingly valuable and independent Jake Tapper reports:

President Obama singled out Lauria's clients for criticism when he announced the Chrysler plan on Thursday.

"While many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively, I have to tell you some did not," the president said. "In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout. They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices, and they would have to make none."

Lauria said the president's assertion that his clients weren't willing to make any sacrifice is false. The clients were willing to take 50 cents on the dollar from Chrysler for their debt, he said.

President Obama also said of Lauria's clients, "I don't stand with them. I stand with Chrysler's employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler's management, its dealers, and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars. I don't stand with those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices."

"He stands my clients up as basically the reason Chrysler is going into bankruptcy," Lauria said. "He wrongly says they're not willing to make any sacrifice. And then he says he does not stand with us."

Lauria said the president saying he doesn't stand with his clients "kind of sounds like 'You're fair game.' In whatever sense. People are scared. They have gotten death treats. Some have been told people are going to come to their houses. God forbid if some nut did something, I'm just wondering how the president would feel."

The Spyglass weighs in:

Regardless of your position on Chrysler, unions, or any of the other parties involved in this mess, that sort of thing isn't good for anybody for very long. The rules need to be the same for everyone, and the same at every point in the process. When the government starts bending them to try to manipulate results—when the process is compromised for the sake of someone's agenda—the system will adjust in a way that will only hurt our economy, and especially those who are most vulnerable.

The thing is, these folks invested a lot of money in an effort to help Chrysler rebound—yes, in the hopes that they would profit off that rebound; our economy doesn't run on altruism—and they did so knowing what the rules were if their efforts succeeded and what they were if Chrysler went down anyway. Let them and others like them get the idea that the government is willing and able to do whatever is necessary to change those rules after the fact in order to skew the results to its liking, and the next time a big company is looking for help (General Motors, anyone? The New York Times?), the money won't be there.

Investors are willing to take the normal risks of business, because those risks are predictable, and they're taken into account in the terms of the contract. If they perceive a significant risk of ex post facto government intervention on behalf of other parties—risks which are neither predictable nor quantifiable—they'll sit on their hands, rather than take the chance that the next kneecap the Obama administration aims at will be theirs; and GM, or whichever company totters next, will go down.

And a commenter on Megan McArdle's blog hits it out of the park:

Government interference, or arbitrary enforcement of the rule of law is a hallmark of bankruptcies in banana republics, and france. When lenders have confidence that the government will enforce bankruptcy laws (ie the rules of the game) will be consistently upheld, they will lend more freely. When lenders fear their contractual rights will be summarily ignored, they will demand equity-like rates of interest, thus stifling economic activity. Credit is a sacred trust.

The point here is not which party is more "deserving" of more or less of a shrunken pie, lazy unions or heartless hedge funds. Lots of folks fundamentally believe the government should do whatever the hell it wants (eg upend absolute priority in bankruptcy) to effect the "greater good", as defined by a self-designated minority of people. But all government policies have a cost, and those same folks like to pretend that those costs don't exist. When the Government flouts the rule of law to fit its preferred special interest groups, that has a real cost.

I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in the coming days. We have an economic crisis, a Government with a Democratic supermajority, a charismatic and articulate President who both enjoys high favorable ratings but also has shown no compunction about pushing the Executive power envelope, and a citizenry that feels that the Rule of Law is subservient and expendable when it clashes against Fairness (which is whatever the media defines it to be).

Of course, not everyone sees this as something to be alarmed about. A commenter on The Spyglass called it a "tempest in a (cracked) Republican teapot."

I don't have all the details, and certainly not all the facts. I just have a bad feeling . . .

Thoughts?