You could consider it tit-for-tat — the Wall Street banks, after all, have helped cause the worst financial crisis in decades.

Going public with his complaints about the fees — and his expected ass-chewing of the banks today over what he's already called "deceptive" practices focusing on credit-card fees and higher interest rates — appears to be a smart political move: It also puts pressure on the Senate to OK a bill just approved by a House panel to limit the new fees on credit cards, mortgages, and the like. As a bargaining chip, Obama has pushed measures stronger than the one the House panel OK'd.

This move's even getting international play: Agence France Presse banners "Obama to challenge credit card titans."

The president picked the right moment — in effect, he's telling the banking industry as a whole: "You want to get out from under TARP? Then quit fucking around."

Such public pressure by Obama (in addition to the usual just behind-the-scenes diplomacy and arm-twisting) will be needed if the president's aiming to do more than just talking through his hat, because, despite its woes, the banking industry has poured money into intense lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Bloomberg predicts this morning that credit-card issuers from Bank of America, American Express, and others "aren't likely to make much headway" in their counterattack against Obama's "pressing for consumer protections."

Like a Harold Lederman summing up the round-by-round blows in a championship fight, Bloomberg sums up the situation pretty well:

See my earlier items "Latest bank scam: Jacking up fees for house mortgages" (April 20), "Lobbying by Goldman Sachs soared in 2008 while its stock plummeted and it raked in bailout money" (April 9), "Feds probe whether Goldman Sachs, other banks 'cooked their books' to get bailout money" (April 13), and "Wall Street's investment in pols paid off" (March 4).