If only we all could make a $400,000 mistake—and I mean the kind that gives us that kind of bread (dating myself here) not costing us…..

The N&O editorial board gives former President Obama a real wet noodle lashing over his $400,000 fee from Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald:

Obama had a hard row in the White House, and did a good job bringing the nation back from the economic brink and expanding health care to more than 22 million people through the Affordable Care Act. Does he have the right to earn a living? Of course, but he and his First Lady, Michelle Obama, have signed a book deal reportedly worth $65 million from Random House. And earning prospects for a former president who is only 55 years old are virtually boundless, with board memberships and executive possibilities.

But paid speeches, thanks to the Clintons, have a bad image, and Obama should certainly have been aware of that. The former president, so gifted and so sound in judgment, is entitled to make a mistake. And this time, he made one.

Gag. Brace yourselves, N&O—I have feeling the former president–and his wife— are going to make this mistake a few more times.