The bribery of Sen. Dodd

The Washington Times has published an article that walks right up to the line of accusing Sen. Dodd of outright bribery and corruption. According to the article:

'As Democrats prepared to take control of Congress after the 2006 elections, a top boss at the insurance giant American International Group Inc. told colleagues that Sen. Christopher J. Dodd was seeking re-election donations and he implored company executives and their spouses to give.
The message in the Nov. 17, 2006, e-mail from Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, was unmistakable: Mr. Dodd was "next in line" to be chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the insurance industry, and he would "have the opportunity to set the committee's agenda on issues critical to the financial services industry.
Now, two years later, Mr. Dodd has emerged as a central figure in the government's decision to let executives at the now-failing AIG collect more than $218 million in bonuses, according to the Connecticut attorney general - even as the company was receiving billions of dollars in assistance from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). He acknowledged that he slipped a provision into legislation in February that authorized the bonuses, but said the Treasury Department asked him to do it.'

Sounds like bribery to me. Of course, Dodd blames the whole mess on the hapless Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers. Barney Frank likes to say that the AIG executives took bribes by accepting their bonuses. That's rich coming from Frank, who took large amounts from Fannie, Freddie and AIG, but if one accepts it on its face, then demanding re-election funds surely qualifies as a bribe.

We can do it all, now, and eliminate the deficit - in four years (and I have a nice bridge for you)

President Obama is currently addressing Congress, and has just stated that health care reform must be done this year, that the auto industry must and will be saved, that the spending spree must continue, and that anything wrong is the fault of the prior Administration (well, that was more implied than said, but was obvious). All this, AND we'll halve the deficit within 2 years and eliminate within 6 (implying a second term). Anyone interested in the Brooklyn Bridge? All-in-all, it's a speech that promises all things to all people with no explanations as to how and what the costs will be. In other words, a typical political nothing.

A few musings along the way.

The checks are in the mail for the tax cuts: all $13 per household.

Ahh - bribery for service - a higher education for all. I'm not totally opposed as long as service is determined by the individual and not the state, and no brown shirts or jack boots are required. I'm still a little worried about that non-voluntary, as-strong-as-the-military, not-the-police, civilian 'security force' the President talked about on the campaign trail.

The markets were up for the first time a few weeks today after the Fed Chair, Ben Bernanke, managed to calm fears that the Administration is planning on a wholesale takeover of the banking sector. Instead, Bernanke implied, there would be a partial and temporary government stake in the most troubled institutions.

Note to the President: find a way to not have Nancy Pelosi smirking at the Republicans right behind you when you're trying to look dignified and Presidential. She either looks like she's in rictus, or trying not to sneer. Either way, it's really undignified.