Video: Kanjorski slams Obama administration
posted at 1:25 pm on March 18, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) spends most of his time slamming Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG, for paying out bonuses in this CNBC video, but listen for his anger at the Obama administration’s insistence that it knew nothing about the bonuses until last week. Kanjorski says that people knew about the bonuses for months, and that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner needs to start reading his mail and answering his phone if he was truly that ignorant about the company he gave $150 billion:
I’m a little confused over Kanjorski’s thinly-veiled threat towards Edward Liddy. First, Liddy got brought into AIG by the government after the first bailout; he didn’t run AIG when it ran itself into the ground, and he’s just beginning to figure out what to fix, as Liddy himself explains in a WaPo column today. Also, as Dave at AOL Political Machine points out, we own 80% of AIG. If we don’t like the way the board runs the company, why don’t we replace them?
Kanjorski certainly understands the political ramifications of these developments. He blames Liddy for putting Obama’s bailout plans at risk, even though Lawrence Summers confirmed that AIG had a contractual obligation to pay the bonuses, but the end result will be the same no matter who gets the blame — the American electorate will resent the bailouts and clean house (and clean the House) in 2010. As Mel Brooks once said in Blazing Saddles, their phony-baloney jobs are at stake. And looking like the “Keystone Kops”, as Kanjorski accurately describes the Bonus Baloney, will make that result even more likely.
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Whoa, he was not happy with those protestors.
“SIGNS DOWN!”
alflauren on March 18, 2009 at 1:28 PM
I’m going with Kanjorski as the 7 of clubs in the house of cards.
Vashta.Nerada on March 18, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Jon Stewart says, “Kanjorski must be destroyed”
lorien1973 on March 18, 2009 at 1:30 PM
THIS may be the straw that broke the camel’s back? heh
becki51758 on March 18, 2009 at 1:33 PM
An outcome dearly desired. Please, please, please.
johnsteele on March 18, 2009 at 1:33 PM
I think it’s unclear as to the nature of the stock held by the government. The stock is restricted, and at least some portion is non-voting. As such, the government’s trustees may not have the power (a majority interest) to replace the board.
Dead Hand Control on March 18, 2009 at 1:34 PM
Sometimes a little self-preservation is a beautiful thing.
BigD on March 18, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Isn’t Kanjorski from the Keystone State?
But don’t we just love these Democrats eating their own? They’re discovering that their silver-tongued President was promoted to his level of incompetence, and suddenly they’re running for cover.
Like Saint Peter after the real Messiah was arrested, “We don’t know him”!
Steve Z on March 18, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Do you think politicians, who can’t even run their own postal system or bank, can run an international company much less decide who should be on the board?
lorien1973 on March 18, 2009 at 1:37 PM
A little off topic, looking at the image on the blog post ….
Since when did Ming Tsai become a political commentator?
BigD on March 18, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Never let the government run/own/control a private company.
albill on March 18, 2009 at 1:39 PM
If the government is this good at “running” AIG with only 80% holdings, I can’t wait until they have 100%.
GarandFan on March 18, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Uhhhhh……Rep. Kanjorski?
Ummmmmm, why aren’t you blaming Chris Dodd? Shouldn’t you be directing your anger at Sen. Dodd for risking the recovery?
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on March 18, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Kanjorski can be refreshingly honest about the misdeeds of his party.
I really don’t see a resemblance except that they’re both Asian.
amerpundit on March 18, 2009 at 1:44 PM
ANOTHER RESCUE PLAN!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!!?!?
WHAT THE HECK ARE THESE PEOPLE?!?!?!? THESE ARE MONSTERS, even this man.
WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT IN JAIL FOR STEALING MY KIDS’ MONEY?!!?!?
WHY IS THIS LEGAL AT ALL!?
Oh my gosh…I am so, so pissed…this anger over Liddy…wth????!?! So WHAT?! We have an incompetent, deceptive government who is drunk off their butts at the wheel of a huge semi and they are rolling over EVERYONE…
I hate this so much. I want these people handcuffed and hauled away. I want Obama, Dodd, FRANK, Pelosi, Waters, Schumer, etc. incarcerated. Possibly the Rinos, too.
Mommypundit on March 18, 2009 at 1:46 PM
Mommypundit on March 18, 2009 at 1:46 PM
AMEN!!!! I’m still screaming at the tv! Total bunch of “f” sticks.
milwife88 on March 18, 2009 at 1:48 PM
Best advice, HA denizens…
Call Lou Barletta, mayor of Hazleton, Pa. Tell him you’ll support him financially if he makes another run at Kanjorski. Follow through on it. Barletta damn near beat him with everything going against the R label in 2008. One more push… one less D in Congress.
either orr on March 18, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Minus a certain cigar/blue dress incident, this is the first time in MY adult life that I have been so ashamed of half the voting public and an administration.
Even with the ethical disaster that was Bill Clinton, he at least was semi-aware of, gosh, I don’t know…anything? It is very difficult not to feel creeping futility. It’s pretty inescapable.
Mommypundit on March 18, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Don’t forget, they couldn’t even run their senatorial restaurant either.
myrenovations on March 18, 2009 at 1:53 PM
It’s more CYA just like Evan Bayh’s mirage.
gsherin on March 18, 2009 at 1:56 PM
So,he’s calling the administration,
a liar!
Me thinks,Paul,has committed heresey,and blasphemy,
either the Liberal party banish’s him,
or,
wait till Pelosi gets her claws on him,and gives
him ‘The mother of all ream jobs’,OUCH!!
canopfor on March 18, 2009 at 1:58 PM
BTW,is there any mention of audits and accountants,
so its all on the up and up!!!
canopfor on March 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM
These clowns on Capitol Hill are using Liddy as a whipping boy, so they can pretend outrage. That helps them take the eye off the fact that all those jerks signed a bill they never read!!!!!!
joedoe on March 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Same thing with the private jets…funny how we have forgotten that charade already.
Mommypundit on March 18, 2009 at 2:02 PM
If the government is this good at “running” AIG with only 80% holdings, I can’t wait until they have 100%.
GarandFan on March 18, 2009 at 1:43 PM
…and we want them to have a bigger hand in healthcare????
t on March 18, 2009 at 2:08 PM
Just think of it this way…. if they, indeed knew nothing of the Dodd “Arrangement”… it doesn’t look good on them because they didn’t read the fine print close enough…..
CynicalOptimist on March 18, 2009 at 2:12 PM
President Obama and his administration have made a complete shambles of the AIG bailout, and the failure won’t be papered over by the chief executive’s populist campaign rhetoric.
To call it an “outrage” doesn’t begin to describe the disgraced insurance giant’s payment of $165 million in bonuses to securities traders in the very division whose dealings in so-called credit default swaps was at the root of Wall Street’s current meltdown.
All this for the guys who pushed over the first boulder in the current financial avalanche. And for what? So that American International Group Inc. can “unwind” its disastrous investments. It’s a bit like a bank robber insisting he’s entitled to a finder’s fee for telling you where he buried the loot.
Meanwhile, the New York Times reported Tuesday that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is using millions in federal bailout money to make loans to its employees whose stakes in the firm’s internal investment partnerships have been undermined by the collapse of the real estate and equities markets.
In its own way, what’s happening at Goldman is every bit as appalling as the AIG debacle. Has anyone offered you government funds to shore up the losses in your 401(k) or retirement portfolio? It’s a ludicrous double standard that reflects the ethical sinkhole Wall Street has made of its relationship with the rest of American society.
AIG insists (and the Obama administration can’t seem to make up its mind whether it agrees) that the company is “contractually obligated” to follow through with the bonuses. The last time the right of contract was draped in as much sanctimony was when lawyers representing the robber barons of our first Gilded Age argued that the inviolability of contracts precluded the adoption of child labor laws.
- Tim Rutten
MB4 on March 18, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Kanjorski is 100% correct. Who ARE these Dems who are coming out of the woodwork against mindless corporate welfare and where have they been all my life?
DeathToMediaHacks on March 18, 2009 at 2:19 PM
hey didn’t read the fine print close enough…..
No question…Dodd’s argument is empty.. I call BS on his statement that he opposed bonuses in the initial write-up, but even if he did, the mark-up should have been reviewed to assure that ’someone’ did not change the intent.
…but if too many actually read the document prior to voting……..
t on March 18, 2009 at 2:23 PM
From your lips to God’s (sorry AP) ears.
Fuquay Steve on March 18, 2009 at 2:26 PM
Incidentally, has anybody asked Team Obama why it is more than willing to break mortgage contracts with a bankruptcy-judge cram-down, but won’t cram-down compensation agreements for AIG, despite the fact that the U.S. government owns the company? Kind of odd, don’t you think?
- Lawrence Kudlow
MB4 on March 18, 2009 at 2:29 PM
I’m agreeing (in principle) with Kudlow? The world’s gone topsy turvy. Stop, I want to get off.
DeathToMediaHacks on March 18, 2009 at 2:31 PM
Scoot over Joan of Arc, we may have a couple more to join you. I hope.
Lincoln Cadillac on March 18, 2009 at 2:40 PM
But with who?
DeathToMediaHacks on March 18, 2009 at 2:44 PM
I know the gutter and I know the stink of the street
For too long now I have pressed through this festering heat
All those beauties who towered above me
Those who gave me the smack of their rod
Soon now I will give them the gutter
I give you the judgment of God!
The world may be ugly, but each man must do what he must
Give in pretty dears, in a year you will be pretty dust
Now come let our lady possess you
In her breathtaking, hair-raising bed
She will tingle your spine
As she captures your heart and your head
PercyB on March 18, 2009 at 2:50 PM
After this faux outrage, I would bet that not many exec’s would come out of retirement to help government.By the way, S___w barney franks.
Johan Klaus on March 18, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Did I hear correctly? He just chastised Liddy for not providing them with the info when they asked for it 2 months ago and in the very next sentence, he goes after the administration for lying about whether or not they knew about this before last week.
WTF?
Jamewah on March 18, 2009 at 2:53 PM
And congress wonders why their approval rating is so low.
Johan Klaus on March 18, 2009 at 2:54 PM
If AIG was “too big to fail,” wouldn’t it be true that AIG is too big to be run by the feds?
Akzed on March 18, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Because then Obama would become responsible for them. He could no longer stand around and call them “evil” whenever they did what he told them to do.
And that’s all that matters to him.
logis on March 18, 2009 at 3:10 PM
Checks and balances in action. Not.
The Arugula King provides cover for Congress by “feigning outrage” over the AIG bonuses pointing the finger exclusively at Wall Street greed and the previous administration while Congress backs the Arugula King’s agenda as necessary to save the Republic.
Angry Dumbo on March 18, 2009 at 3:43 PM
I want Congress to pass whatever law they wish to tax 100% of those bonuses. As soon as it does, I will file a complaint with the AG office that I want the law applied to every CongressCritter who just recently got an automatic raise. No bonuses for them either!
Dr. Dog on March 18, 2009 at 3:48 PM
If I were Mr. Liddy, I would resign, take my millions and
retire to a comfy life. No more Washington b.s. hearings
before idiots like Kanjorsky and Barney the Frauld. Just
fishin’ and huntin’. Screw ‘em.
gary on March 18, 2009 at 4:17 PM
Must be up for re-election soon?
Dr. ZhivBlago on March 18, 2009 at 5:27 PM
You’re confused, Ed, because, good-hearted person that you are, you’re still expecting any of this crap to make sense. This government is Chaos–the opposite of order.
baldilocks on March 18, 2009 at 5:47 PM
It’s the Keystone Cops, Ed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops
Tinian on March 18, 2009 at 8:22 PM
I hate this so much. I want these people handcuffed and hauled away. I want Obama, Dodd, FRANK, Pelosi, Waters, Schumer, etc. incarcerated. Possibly the Rinos, too.
Mommypundit
They know that, and this is why they throw out this red herring (bonuses) to distract the public from their crimes while they keep trying to buy your vote with your own money.
Bread and circuses, as has been aptly noted by previous commenters.
SKYFOX on March 19, 2009 at 5:20 AM
More smoke screen brought to us by a demofascist and cnbc. They talk about the next stimulus package/ bailout fraud like it’e a done deal and an absolute necessity. In my opinion if liddy causes America to wake up then he should be considered a hero. This dirtbag democrat is outraged that his ability to crush the American people under massive debt for many years, if not forever, might be threatened. And people here seem to be heartened by his outrage. Are you heartened when the burglar is angry at his partner for forgetting the crowbar when they are standing outside your house?
peacenprosperity on March 19, 2009 at 7:42 AM
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