Fake Outrage

Whenever a democrat starts frothing at the mouth over something, you have to look behind the curtain and see why they're so "outraged." First, the source of the indignation:

• Talking tougher by the hour, livid Democrats confronted beleaguered insurance giant AIG with an ultimatum Tuesday: Give back $165 million in post-bailout bonuses or watch Congress tax it away with emergency legislation. Republicans declared the Democrats were hardly blameless, accusing them of standing by while the bonus deal was cemented and suggesting that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner could and should have done more.

Congress just can't abrogate contracts unilaterally, so this posturing and faux outrage is simply so much noise to distract everyone from something else. What could that be? Bush signed part of this bailout that was forced through by a democratic majority in the House. Could this have something to do with it?

• Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit. Within hours, the idea spread to both houses of Congress, with lawmakers proposing an AIG bonus tax.

  While the Senate was constructing the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. The provision, now called “the Dodd Amendment” by the Obama Administration provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009” -- which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are now seeking to tax.

Oops. So a prominent democrat constructed an Amendment that allowed AIG to distribute the contractual bonuses and pretty much removed them from oversight. That might have something to do with the "outrage" being cast about. And then there's this handy little graphic (click for full size):

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There's Dodd at the top of the receiving list of contributions. Who's that guy at number two? Number three? Number four? Number seven? Number twelve? No wonder no one wants AIG to go under. Especially democrats who received money at a 3-to-1 ratio.

No wonder they're screaming.