Taken from Mona Charen's blog on Creators Syndicate"The mob is the mother of tyrants." — Diogenes
Shamelessness is the order of the day. If I were an AIG executive entitled by law to a large "retention" bonus negotiated before the taxpayers had bailed out my company, I hope I would have the decency to refuse it. Reward for a job well done in the private sector is one thing. Suckling from the government sow is another. And it is particularly galling to reward mismanagement!
Our elected officials may have no idea how to extricate the economy from its economic decline, but they sure know how to stage a show trial.
There is surely enough blame to go around in this financial mess: bankers who made bad judgments about loans, Wall Street firms who negligently packaged securities of unknown worth, and individuals who made unwise investments based on the foolish assumption that real estate prices could only continue to rise. But certainly the malfeasance of politicians is near the top of any list. Politicians encouraged (to the point of bullying) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make dubious loans; b) resisted regulation of those same GSEs; and c) have spent taxpayers' money wildly and irresponsibly, setting us up for even more frightening economic calamities down the road.
Obama tried to distance himself from the blame game in Washington. "I know Washington's all in a tizzy and everybody's pointing fingers at each other saying it's all their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault. Listen, I'll take responsibility. I'm the president." This was met by cheers. But then the president added, "We didn't draft these contracts. We've got a lot on our plate…" So he isn't really taking responsibility, he's evading it.
AIG's recently installed CEO, Edward Liddy, agreed to testify before a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, which Rep. Barney Frank chairs. Liddy was actually a poor choice for scapegoat as he has only been on the job since September. Additionally, he is serving as a dollar-a-year man hoping to rescue the company and our financial system from a downward spiral.
Frank demanded that Liddy reveal the names of the 73 executives who had received retention bonuses. Liddy said he would do so if he could receive a promise of confidentiality. Frank refused and threatened to subpoena the names. Liddy said if subpoenaed he would obey the law, but he then read to the committee some of the death threats his company had been getting over the past few days. Some threats spoke of hanging the executives with piano wire, others of finding where their kids went to school.
That is the sort of ugliness and criminality that Frank is willing tacitly to encourage by demanding the names. And for what? The bonuses amounted to just one tenth of 1 percent of the AIG bailout (to say nothing of the stimulus bill and the gargantuan budget bill Congress and the president are hanging around our necks). If politicians want to metaphorically flay away at evil businessmen, well, that's regrettable. But when they cross the line into encouraging the targeting of actual individuals, they are no longer "honorable gentlemen," but leaders of a mob.
To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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