Monday, March 30, 2009

Stunned by Hopium

John Kass, in the Chicago Tribune:
Obama told Jay Leno he was surprised that those greedy AIG executives who helped lead the country into financial ruin were in line to receive $165 million in bonuses paid for by bailout cash authorized by his administration.

"Stunned, stunned is the word," said Obama.

Stunned?

It turns out that his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—who didn't pay all of his federal taxes but was still deemed worthy by Obama of collecting yours—knew all about the AIG bonuses weeks ago.

That was long before Washington Democrats began shrieking in pretend outrage over the bonuses, as if they didn't vote for them, sort of like Chicago aldermen shrieking about corruption from the 5th Floor.

It's like Mayor Richard Daley saying, "Gee, I dunno" when news breaks that his nephews are in another multimillion-dollar government deal. Or that time that Daley gave $100 million in affirmative action contracts to men he knows well, yet was stunned to learn later that they were white guys, not black females.

These days, the Washington Way is looking just like the Chicago Way. Those of us from Illinois can see it, what with City Hall guys pulling White House strings.

Then again, we're not surprised because we don't get the high-grade Hopium out here in the Midwest. The good stuff must be reserved for the Beltway media establishment, since they're the ones feeling tingles running up their legs.

2 comments:

Charles D said...

When it comes to bending over backwards to protect the poor Wall Street "wizards" from the losses resulting from their mistakes, Obama is as bad as Bush.

The "outrage" over the AIG bonuses is typical Washington "Look over here, don't look behind the curtain" politics and the media lap it up as always. Yeah, $165 million is a lot of money and those bozos certainly don't deserve it, but we have thrown over $170 Billion into AIG with no end in sight. That's just not as sexy as those big execs flying around in their private planes.

So either we are to believe that Geithner lies to Obama (possible), or that Obama lied to Jay Leno (also possible). I for one, never drank the Kool-Aid. I knew that Obama's campaign was financed by Wall Street and that he was going to dance with the ones that brung him. Hopium indeed! The more we vote for change, the more things stay the same.

Cameron said...

Indeed. John Kass has some great material in Obama's hometown paper.