I just got finished watching Olbermann’s show, in which law professor Jonathan Turley casually endorsed the canard that Chris Dodd is responsible for preserving AIG’s ability to pay the much and rightly maligned bonuses. We can expect Simmons to jump on this bandwagon. It’s a line also being pushed by the Treasury Department, which is trying desperately to deflect responsibility. It’s also completely untrue, as is well documented here at Firedoglake (this seems to be my day for linking to that estimable site. I encourage you to read the whole post, but if you’re too lazy, here’s the essence:
It’s impossible to know how many of those bonuses would have been covered by Dodd’s original language without examining the individual contracts. What is certain, however, is that the loophole regarding “retroactivity” which facilitated the payout of the bonuses that AIG cited in their white paper, was something that Treasury specifically lobbied for. For the “administration official” to blame Dodd in the pages of the New York Times for the payout of these bonuses, after the White House publicly fought him tooth and nail to weaken compensation limits, is completely disingenuous.
One point should be remembered if, as I suspect, this meme continues to spread. This was not inside baseball. At the time, Dodd’s amendment was in fact publicly deplored by the Obama administration. What he proposed is not what we got. It’s shameful that they’re trying to throw him under the bus to protect their own skin. It will be equally shameful if the media goes along with this line, without even bothering (as Turley apparently did not) to check the facts that should be easily obtainable in their own archives.
UPDATE: From the Huffington Post:
In an interview with CNN’s Ali Velshi Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed that his department had pushed Sen. Chris Dodd to add a loophole in the federal stimulus bill allowing bailout recipients to receive bonuses. Dodd had told the network Wednesday that he had been the one to insert the loophole, but at the request of the Treasury.
According to a commenter, my original post has been proven wrong. I did not, so far as I can see, say that Dodd never agreed to the final bill. I said, as did the folks at Firedoglake, that it was pressure from the Treasury (or White House if you prefer) that led to the adoption of the final language. You can criticize Dodd for caving to Treasury, but you can’t accuse him of slipping the provision into the bill of his own accord, particularly if you are speaking on behalf of Treasury.
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