ObamaOdrama

I recently questioned how long the government would continue trying to throw AIG under the bus for this whole bonusgate mess. Apparently just long enough for the politicians’ instinct for self-preservation to kicks in.

It’s basic human nature. If you can call politicians human. In the end it doesn’t matter if they are Republican, Democrat, or Independent — no one wants this stink on them and have to face the very mob they helped gin up. But there appears to be a sort of honor among these thieves and rather than give up one of their own they will offer up a bigger “prize.”

Just a few days ago as the public eye shifted in his direction, Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) “confessed” the Obama administration pressured him to clear the way for the AIG bonuses.

According to FoxNews:

Dodd, a five-term senator, was already facing a tough re-election contest in 2010. He says the Obama administration insisted he modify his proposal to rein in bonuses at companies getting billions of dollars in financial bailouts so that it would only apply to payments agreed to in the future — thus clearing the way for the AIG payouts.

It was that or have his executive pay limits dropped altogether from the $787 billion stimulus measure that passed last month, Dodd says.

He agreed to the changes “in order to preserve the amendment,” Dodd told reporters Thursday. “They sought it; I didn’t. They asked for the changes … and so we agreed to those changes.”

On the Joe and Mika Radio Show, Maxine Waters (D-Cali.) fighting for her own survival threw Dodd a lifeline and questioned Obama’s understanding of the facts including the part the Treasury played in the AIG bonuses.

Even Republicans are supporting Dodd’s confession in order to lend legitimacy to their call for the resignation of Treasury Secretary Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner.

Florida Republican Rep. Connie Mack called for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to lose his job Wednesday, becoming the first Capitol Hill lawmaker to call for his ouster over AIG’s using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars for executive bonuses.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., later joined in the call Wednesday.

Mack told FOX News that Geithner should resign or the administration should fire him.

“The American people certainly don’t see any competence in him. And I think he’s got a lot of questions to answer,” he said.

Mack said in a written statement released earlier in the day that President Obama should nominate a new treasury secretary with “the experience and leadership skills America deserves.”

“Quite simply, the Timothy Geithner experience has been a disaster. The Treasury Department is in disarray. Taxpayer dollars are being wasted,” he said.

Honor among thieves indeed.

Fox Business uncovers emails regarding the governments advance knowledge of AIG’s intent to provide bonuses.

In a Nov. 5 e-mail to a Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, who were under the Bush administration, an outside attorney working on the transaction wrote, “We indicated that UST (United States Treasury) … wants to put in place a limitation on annual bonuses that assure that (AIG: 1.2, -0.39, -24.53%) executives/employees will not be enriched out of TARP funds.”

But the e-mail indicates AIG officials pushed back on the proposal. In a section of the e-mail discussing proposed limits on severance packages for AIG employees, the attorney wrote, “They were slack jawed at the idea of imposing the restriction throughout the entire population, especially worldwide.” AIG proposed that Treasury apply such limits “to a class of partners and senior partners (700).”

At another spot in the e-mail, the attorney said about AIG executives, “They will think about ways to deal with the ‘no enrichment’ point. In this connection they again raised the size of the applicable group and kept coming back to ‘700’ as a meaningful, and possibly workable, group for limitations.”

The e-mail also indicates that in their deliberations, government officials were concerned about the effect of compensation on recruiting and retaining AIG employees.

“We also indicated that all parties understand that the restrictions must be designed so that the business can be operated in a reasonable way, including in terms of recruitment and retention of employees,” the attorney wrote in the e-mail.

The government eventually restricted compensation at AIG to just the top 75 executives.

How much longer can the government get away with throwing AIG under the bus to cover it’s own mistake?

CNSNews.com reports that the pro-union Connecticut Working Families Party is setting up a “field trip” to show working people where and how the AIG executives live.

Those executives “bear a large share of the responsibility for bringing the economy to its knees, and now the same folks are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses — at our expense,” Connecticut Working Families says on its Web site. “Join us for a field trip to bring them the message.”

Jon Green, the director of Connecticut Working Families, told the New York Times on Friday that his group would be “peaceful and lawful” and would not “foment” lingering rage at AIG “unnecessarily.”

Another case of misplaced blame perpetuated by the likes of Barney “Dickstein” Frank (D-Mass.).

Today, in yet another show of outrage resulting from corporate “greed” epitomized by the AIG bonusgate, the Democrat led House passed a bill that would tax employee bonuses at companies that received government assistance.

Frankly, I don’t give a damn about AIG handing out bonuses to their execs. It’s about as logical as blaming an addict for indulging in his/her drug of choice if given money knowing full well of their addiction. But in this case, it was the government that forced us to give the addict money and now the same government has the audacity to blame the addict! On top of blame the government is willing to punish the addict including anyone who might enjoy a cigarette or a couple beers responsibly on occassion “for our sake”.

Now Treasury Secretary Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner came up with the idea to give the addict money in the first place and Obama continues to defend the man’s actions. Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) knew the addict was going to get a fix and helped make it happen. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) now feels justified in making an example of anyone close to being an addict.

Anyone else see something wrong with this story besides the poor substance abuse addiction analogy?

While everyone is being stirred up and expressing their outrage over the AIG bonusgate I think it’s time to step back and re-evaluate the situation. Namely, the government’s incompetence or malfeasance in all this mess.

The usual suspects are all actively hard at work to punish AIG on “our” behalf while Obama calls for greater government power over financial institutions. These guys were all involved in crisis and are now ginning up the notion that if they have more power they could avoid such things in the future.

Whether incompetence or malfeasance does Obama really think they deserve greater control of our money?