I've long complained that Obama was making a huge mistake in nominating Robert Rubin proteges Summers and Geithner for critical posts in formulating and executing responses to this disaster.

As for what Geithner knows about AIG, he sat in on the meetings for the first bail-out of AIG in September of 2008,when he headed the NY Fed, and you would expect from that post he would have known a great deal about the dirty deals Wall Street had cooked up over the years.

The arrogant Summers was treasury head when Clinton signed legislation exempting derivatives from regulation, and apparently recommended to Clinton that he do so.

It is fundamental that you cannot hire people to clean up very serious messes that they helped to create. They cannot separate their egos from the development of solutions, they want to frame issues in a way that minimizes their culpability, and for a thousand other reasons, it was simply wrong to choose these folks to lead the effort to save the economy.

The first bag of cash handed out happened 2 months before obama was even elected. The man in charge GEORGE WORTHLESS BUSH. The second bag of cash handed out was in november by GEORGE WORTHLESS BUSH and his head hauncho, paulson. I guess the republicans can't remember who was president the last 8 years. I probably wouldn't want to remember either if i was a republican. They all got time to spend in front of a t.v. camera and give obama hell but never say how they are going to fix the mess that GEORGE WORTHLESS BUSH left this country in. They don't want to fix it so they can keep blaming it on obama and the democrats. On reason they put old man mccain and his pet wolf from alaska up for president. They didn't want a republican to take care of this mess and never get power back. It is going to backfire and the democrats will be in charge for a long time to come.

The bill creating a special tax on executive bonuses is a bit of a sham---but it is a step in the right direction. Here's an even better idea: make this REAL. Create tax bracket for those who are given obscene compensation (unless you actually believe anyone really *earns* those multi-millions?!). Make a 50% bracket at $2M, 75% at $5M, and 90% at $10M. That would go a long way to assuage the public belief that Congress is merely a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich and would actually help shore up the federal budget.

Of course, I would go further and say there oughta be a law that limits ALL executive total compensation to no more than 50 times that of their lowest paid employee (including subcontractors---like cleaning staff).

The pro-Wall-Street media bias on this issue (see the WaPo today 3/20 where there are several "news" articles pushing the bonuses) is so massive that you have to suspect direct intervention from big-money interests. We already know that these firms are spending taxpayer money on lobbying - how about monetary influence on the media?

This evening I sat in on a panel discussion on business financing during the recession, given to a crowd of mostly low to mid six-figure wage earners, overwhelmingly Ivy League types in the executive and financial management strata.

They were grim and serious and listened intently and nodded a lot at the various dour prognostications and pieces of sage advice — except when someone mentioned going after AIG's bonuses.

Then this crowd of well-heeled MBAs and CEOs interrupted the speaker mid-sentence with a savagely angry, full-throated eruption of sustained, cheering approval that made it feel like an undergraduate socialist rally at Antioch.

I have never seen anything like that.

There are doubtless times when it's appropriate, even wise, for a political strategist to dismiss a popular story as just a bunch of empty hype by an opposition trying to find a way to get some mud to stick.

But this is not one of those times. It's frankly jaw dropping to see a quote from Axelrod like the one Glenn Greenwald cites. He's deeply, profoundly out of touch and needs to get his head straight right now.

Now you are finally getting to the core of the issue.

But of you use the phrase, cite the man who coined it.

Thanks.

One could easily say that the bailout has been more about bailing out Goldman Sachs than anything.

The following were principals at Goldman: Jim Cramer, Gov. Corzine. Robert Rubin, Christopher Cox, Hank Paulson.

Guess what?

All but one of them is a Democrat.

Goldman's clients must deposit $10,000,000.00 and have at least $10,000,000.00 with Goldman under management to be a Goldman client.

It's like a club of rich liberals.

So, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the stimulus/bailout has been all about stimulating and bailing out rich liberals. In bailing out AIG, our gov was also taking care of Goldman.

This might lead to somethings they did not expect.

0bama will jettison the rich liberals in a flash if they suddenly become problematic. With his rhetoric he might try to ignite a firestorm of resentment which extends to his own erstwhile bankers at GS.

0bama is all about 0bama. He is not about capitalism. He is about 0bama. He is not about socialism. He is about 0bama. Goldman Sachs and her clients probably funded a significant portion of his campaign, somewhere between 20 and 50%.

Liberalz, especially rich ones, may have gotten far more than they expected this time.

What happens to the rich liberals when 0bama must turn on them?

I finally understand where the disconnect is. You misunderstand the meaning of "Dodd Amendment."

I do?

The Dodd Amendment is the amendment to the stimu,us bill which limits the ability of banks receiving TARP funds to give bonuses.

Is it now?

So when Gibbs said

the administration and the legal team would certainly look at those as it is looking at existing law, including the Dodd provisions,

he was referring to, not the Dodd Amendment as enacted - in other words "existing law" - but the earlier version, which the White House opposed?

Are you really saying that Gibbs was thanking Dodd for providing a solution by writing a provision, not enacted into law at the request of Gibbs's boss, that would have prevented the bonuses? A solution that is now totally inoperative and useless?

Please think carefully before you answer.