At almost the same time that President Obama was giving his much-hyped speech at Cooper Union, a story was moving over the news wires that can be summed up thusly: Goldman Sachs is innocent! Somebody (gosh, I wonder who?) leaked that a key element of the Securities and Exchange Commission case against the bank was, supposedly, wrong. According to anonymous sources materializing from who knows where, a hedge fund working with Goldman really did disclose its short position, contrary to the SEC charges.

Now, I don’t believe that the SEC brought its titanic case against Goldman to help the president’s financial reform package, as Republicans have been charging. And I’m sure the president’s appearance at Cooper Union was scheduled long in advance of the Goldman case. But still, there was a certain karmic cohesion to all of this. The president was implicitly seizing on the SEC’s very well-timed assault on Goldman—not named in his speech, of course—to bring the famous Obama charm to bear, to push financial reform through the Senate. And here was Wall Street, making every effort to rain on the SEC’s—and his—parade.

What this clash of symbolism demonstrates, I think, is that Wall Street has been the global challenge that has been most stubbornly immune to Obama’s charm and mastery of the public-address system. You may think that the Islamic world shrugged off Obama’s famous Cairo speech, but when it comes to politely ignoring Obama they have nothing on the bankers and financiers of Wall Street, many of whom were in the audience today.

Obama mentioned Wall Street’s defiance in his speech, though he did not label it as such. The immense bonuses that the Street recently awarded itself—payola made possible by taxpayer largesse—was duly noted. Such things, he pointed out, “offended our fundamental values.” No kidding? Yet, the only effective way to deal with mega-bonuses—taxing them—isn’t even in the financial reform package. That hasn’t kept New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg from attacking these non-provisions on the grounds that cutting back on the ability of yuppies to buy Porsches would somehow undermine the New York economy.

It was, by Obama standards, a mild speech. Wall Street was not denounced, but cajoled. Obama outlined the problem eloquently, as he did while he was a candidate—without demanding satisfactory steps to address the problem, as he is supposed to do as president. He took the same approach while addressing the issue of big Wall Street bonuses.