OUTRAGEOUS!

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Let's be clear right up front: at no time have our Representatives in Congress voiced anything like a claim that these AIG bonuses were illegal, nor has any Attorney General of the State or Federal governments alleged anything approaching an indictable offense under law.

Clear uncontroverted evidence presented under oath at Congressional show trials hearings showed that AIG proposed and approved these bonuses in accordance with their own corporate bylaws, SEC and public stock exchange rules and regulations, and State and Federal laws. Additionally, AIG disclosed these bonuses to their government representatives, and consulted with them every step of the way beginning more than a year ago. And most significantly, Congress explicitly approved the payment from government bailout money of these and other bonuses, in the Stimulus Bill of 2009 and again when they voted just a few days ago against a bill that would have prohibited these bonuses.

In other words, there were no slush funds, prevarications, bags of cash passed in the night, intimidation of whistle blowers, or anything else that usually provokes politicians into high dudgeon. The approval and payment of these bonuses was entirely and at all points legal, and perfectly transparent in the best tradition of the new world order being ushered in by our own President Obama.

Now, there is nothing wrong with pandering to the public. All politicians do it to one extent or another and the result is only a certain unsavory atmosphere to the political culture, sort of like the way a paper mill produces a distasteful background smell which otherwise leaves the local township functioning and intact (to put it politely, the smell is similar to that of organic methane). But as David Greising of the Chicago Tribune states so concisely, pandering is not policymaking. At the end of the day, after the klieg lights are turned off, politicians are supposed to become grown-ups once again and pass responsible legislation rather than offering sops to the political frenzy that they themselves have ginned up.

Here is how our system should have worked in this particular case.

To be continued ...

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