Here is a true thing of beauty:
Senate Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNN Wednesday that he was responsible for language added to the federal stimulus bill to make sure that already-existing contracts for bonuses at companies receiving federal bailout money were honored.
Dodd acknowledged his role in the change after a Treasury Department official told CNN the administration pushed for the language.
Both Dodd and the official, who asked not to be named, said it was because administration officials were afraid the government would face numerous lawsuits without the new language.
So, we have an administration and the chief architect of the specific amendment that specifically exempted the AIG bonuses from any additional legal restraints both howling about the injustice of those payments.
After they exempted them.
And they both took very large sums of money from the very entity that was exempted by the amendment.
Dodd denied – yesterday – having anything to do with the amendment. Today, he changes the story. And points a finger at the Obama administration itself.
Isn’t internecine warfare entertaining?
Seriously, both Obama and Dodd have a lot to answer for here. Not the least element of which is: Why have they not paid the money they got from AIG back to the taxpayers – with interest?
Dodd doesn’t have brains enough to put that language into the bill. I wonder who gave him his instructions.