AIG bonus brouhaha could be Geithner's undoing
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 07:44PM 
Let's get right to the crux of the AIG bonus flap.
Yes, the world's largest insurance firm started unraveling last October. And yes, the bailout of AIG has been mostly bipartisan.
But $165 million in bonus payments last week was preventable. By Tim Geitner. Both he and the president knew that AIG was planning to award outrageous bonuses to the very people who caused the problem in the first place, and they didn't do anything about it.
The government owns 80% of the company ... they could have done pretty much anything, from witholding further bailout dough to firing the CEO. But they did nothing, and therein lies the outrage. So now they're scrambling to figure out how to get the money back when they could have blocked it in the first place.
Even Democrats on the hill are outraged by Geithner's folly, and it could end up costing his job.
Reader Comments (3)
dont worry, obama will clean up this mess
obama hit a land mine with this one ... the phrase "what did he know and when did he know it" is about to rear its ugly head
presidential historians, including the amazing one that writes this blog, are already crafting pieces on how Obama will be a top 5 president of all time.