The new administration is disarming the pilots.
The Bush administration was pathetic on this issue, too, but not this bad.
Anyway, stupid bureaucrats are stupid bureaucrats, whatever party is in power.
[Noon update]
Maybe not:
…this sounds to me like either the Times just whiffed this one massively oooooor the White House did want to do something like that and the trial balloon got shot down very fast by a core constituency.
Let’s hope.
[Bumped]
I agree with the AIG execs — Congress should resign or commit sepuku:
“In all candor, I don’t know why they’re so exercised by some bonuses. These pathetic excuses for politicians cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars and, worst of all, they’re still in power.”
Of course, in order to do that, one must have some sense of shame. Or honor. I don’t see any evidence of that in the likes of Chris Dodd or Barney Frank.
The demonstrations, scattered all over the nation, are patterned after the anti-tax Boston tea party of the 18th century, and just may grow in the face of anger over $165 million in bonuses given to the executives of an insurance company sucking up taxpayer billions in a rescue package.
As obnoxiously avaricious as these AIG contractual bonuses were, it is authoritarian, unconstitutional overreach for the government to try to block them at this point. Obama does not care. He shares the blame for anger at the executives, having railed repeatedly and demagogically against economically insignificant CEO salaries, and now that this public fury is turning in his direction, his administration is making it clear it is perfectly happy to throw the rule of law overboard.
For all his articulateness and gift for oratory, this president seems to be spending his time in the Oval Office walking into walls. He has botched up more things in two months in office than most presidents manage over two terms, amply illustrating the campaign charge that his inexperience equipped him for next to nothing.
Here’s hoping that the honeymoon is over.
I’m thinking that along about now Ezra Klein is wishing that he had invited Mickey:
We non-elite writers learn something just from watching the sausage get made. One thing we learn is it’s just sausage. Ezra Klein has taken a lot of what could be highly informative back and forth on the World Wide Web and privatized it, much as rich people in gated communities reclaim green space from the public sphere and wall it off behind guards and fences. It’s not an egalitarian or democratic impulse.
I for one, am unshocked. These folks have a much higher opinion of their democratic impulses than is justified by their actual behavior.
[Update a couple minutes later]
An Instapundit emailer has an amusing suggestion:
Funny, isn’t it, how during the Bush Administration, the New York Times and the “mainstream” news organizations spilled national security secrets on a whim, but Journolist is a sacrosanct temple of secrets. The CIA should run all secret programs from within a “tea party” protest, it will guarantee a media blackout.
And note, we’re discussing all this stuff, making the sausage, in public.
Is this a blip, or a trend?
…it will almost certainly flip back and forth from last week’s Dem +3 and this week’s Rep +2. Nonetheless… you do have to wonder just how badly we are getting hurt by actually sticking to principles for a change.
I think a good indicator will be the special election in New York. If the White House throws everything it has at it, including ACORNs, and the Republicans win anyway, it will be the same kind of portent that we saw when the Democrats were losing special elections in 1993.
The same morons who are whining about AIG bonuses are the ones who put the requirement for them in the Spendulus bill.
I’ve got this really radical idea. How about if our legislators are allowed time to read bills before they vote on them? You know, just so they might have a half a prayer of knowing what’s in them? I know that some of my commenters think that’s crazy talk, but I just can’t help but feel that it might not be a bad idea.
And it makes the Maine Mushheads and Arlen Specter look all the more stupid.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Let’s see: the AIG bonuses were public knowledge last year. But, says Team Obama, the facts were “extremely complex and not easily understood.” So they are relying on the incompetent excuse.
But Tim “only man who could solve this problems so we have to overlook the fact that he cheated on his taxes” Geithner was head of the Federal Reserve when the Feds bailed out AIG and had the bonuses in place. Score another goal for incompetence.
It’s not an exclusive or.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’d like to think that this is becoming obvious to more and more people (particularly people who previously imagined that governments are competent to run economies):
Our political class lacks the self-discipline needed to handle a crisis. They’re too busy reacting to headlines, polls, and fears of headlines and polls. The result is . . . well, endless screwups like this.
Not that there was any evidence prior to this that they’d behave any differently.
[Update again]
He’s gotten Modo’s Irish up:
Barack Obama even needs a teleprompter to get mad.
When a Democrat President has lost Maureen Dowd, things are getting pretty bad.
Let’s get ACORN involved with the census. What could go wrong?
I agree, it seems likely. The question, as JoSH notes, is how to give everyone sufficient capital.
I’ve updated last night’s post, but I’m still not done.
I would also note that there are a number of comments at the original piece, with a couple recent good ones by frequent Transterrestrial commenter Karl Hollowell. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be links to individual comments.