The president is trying to get out in front of the populist mob before it tramples him. But his effort to mirror their shock and indignation is not convincing. The DC Examiner observes:
Let’s review the facts: Geithner, as New York Federal Reserve Board head under Bush, was the chief architect of Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout, which funded the bonuses that now have taxpayers seeing red. It was Obama who put Geithner at Treasury despite the latter’s failure to pay federal taxes four consecutive years. And it was Obama who promised that Geithner would present a detailed plan for completing the TARP clean-up he started during the Bush administration. So it is hypocritical in the extreme for Obama and Geithner to now pose as if they didn’t know AIG was going to be using TARP funds to pay the bonuses. Just two weeks ago, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama and Geithner were “confident” they knew how TARP money was being spent.
After saying they would try to block the bonuses, administration officials then said they would instead apply more stringent rules to the next $30 billion round of bailout funding. But if the White House has the power to call the shots on how bailout money is spent “next time,” it also had the power to do so in the first place.
And in with his not-very convincing performance Obama is now compelled to do something quite unseemly. He has become the Bully-in Chief. As the Washington Post editors remark:
Under the circumstances, we can understand why President Obama feels that he must join this opportunistic chorus rather than resist it. Still, this has not been a stellar moment for the man who came into office arguing that “the time has come to set aside childish things.”
It is one thing for the government to have prospectively “encouraged” AIG and its employees to work this out — to forgo or delay bonuses until, for example, the company is profitable. It is quite another to have special tax laws aimed at a specific group of people, send the New York York attorney general after them, and shift the blame to bonus recipients from the hapless Treasury Secretary who wasn’t clever enough to pursue a voluntary arrangement. Even some Democrats are troubled:
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) told reporters that he worried about running afoul of the Constitution’s equal-protection clause, which forbids laws that treat certain groups differently. For now, Hoyer advocated a course of action that centered on a campaign of public pressure to persuade the AIG executives to surrender the bonuses.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.) also raised doubts about the tax idea. “It’s difficult for me to think of the code as a political weapon,” he told reporters outside his office. “Is this an indictment or a bill?”
This sort of passive-aggressive approach to governance only underlines how disastrous the White House’s performance has been. And this all stems, of course, from the Bush-Obama bailout mentality that seeks not just to take toxic assets off the books to open the flow of credit, but to take over and manage huge, complex financial firms. As I ( and others) have argued, the real solution is Chapter 11, where expert referees can unwind employment agreements and if needed liquidate the company. Instead, we have the Obama team running AIG like an absentee landlord. It has proven to be spectacularly inept at it and should get out of the business of (mis)managing businesses.
Mark Kirk, Steve Israel, Frank Wolff, Steve Rosen, Sammy Benoit, Eli Lake, Shelley Berkley…and many others played a role. WHat is the most dangerous spot in Washington? Between a camera and Schumer
Your Prime Minister was right about who controls America.
We know who Chuckles is but we can’t get him to withdraw.
The Freeman nomination was an embarrassment.
Here’s an excerpt from Freeman. He’s a greater loss than I thought:
I think it’s pretty funny that Freeman is now whining that he is not allowed to serve American interests because the representatives of the American people don’t believe that a shill for Saudi Arabia and China is necessarily the best man to head an intelligence filter.
So according to comment #4, Mr. Freeman asks “whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.”
The answer is that any administration that tries to make decisions too far out of step with mainstream opinion will find itself obstructed. As I said recently on another thread, this is called democracy, and lobbies are among the institutions that make democracy work. This is a time to celebrate democracy.
1. This loss of Freeman was a very nice Purim present. If Obama doesn’t learn some finesse (he’s not in Chicago anymore) we’ll see more such episodes.
2. If the Israel lobby did play a role, more power to them.
3. Saudi influence on US foreign policy, whichever party is in power, has been considerable, and the lack of a Freeman issuing NIE’s will not change that.
Bret Stephens should take the credit – his “crackpot” column on Freeman in today’s Wall Street Journal probably cooked Chas’s goose. The Mearshimer/Walt set as well as the tinfoil hat brigade will certainly blame the “cabal,” but in reality, the good guys just write better. Good writing will trump mouth foam every time.
This loss of Freeman was a very nice Purim present
Yes, I’m sure it was. The American calendar now revolves around a foreign country’s religious holidays.
“The American calendar now revolves around a foreign country’s religious holidays.”
Yeah, like Christmas. The Jews gave us that one too.
Yeah, like Christmas. The Jews gave us that one too.
Purim is a Jewish holiday, and only Israel is a Jewish state. Christmas is a Christian holiday widely celebrated in the Western Hemisphere. I thought I would point this out to you, because you seem to be ignorant of it.
“Christmas is a Christian holiday…. I thought I would point this out to you, because you seem to be ignorant of it.”
Jesus was a Jew. His parents were too. AND he was born in Israel. Now Christmas, the day of his birth, is a national holiday in the US. Coincidence? I think not. The Jews are behind everything.
Eli Lake, a Washington Times reporter was on Hugh Hewitt’s show today and talked about Freeman. He says he is doing a story on the number of people in Washington who collect salaries from foreign governments but do not register as representatives of foreign governments. Like Freeman, for example. I wonder if Walt and Mearsheimer are on anyone’s payroll. The Saudis have half the retired foreign service officers, like Joe Wilson, for example, on the payroll. It should be interesting.
Jennifer, I expect that one of our Jewish Senators threatened to yank his support for the Omnibus that wandered its way through the Senate today. And made his continued support of the Omnibus conditional on Freeman getting yanked.
That’s probably how it all played out.
And as for Freeman, —————————————– take no prisoners! Hound him, pursue him off the field, waylay him, and run him down like the bought-and-paid for minion of the sauds that he his.
Let him not find so much as a boulder strewn declavity to find refuge. Bury the spearpoints in his wounded carcas.
On Purim, some wave noisemakers or boo when they hear the name “John Hartland”.