by Damozel |Atrios:
The issue is that Timmeh and friends never distinguished between bailing out the system and bailing out the players. There was a way to do that, and they didn't do it.
Meanwhile, Timmeh himself has staggered forth from the Treasury's crypt to claim a share of the blame.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed Thursday that the department did talk to Sen. Chris Dodd about a clause he put forth in the stimulus legislation that would have strictly limited executive bonuses.
A loophole in the bill allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses.
The Treasury Department was concerned that legislation that would restrict contractual bonuses would not hold up to legal challenges, Geithner said in an interview with CNN's Ali Velshi. (CNN)
Ah yes, and Chris Dodd got caught in a tiny misstatement.
Congress last month passed the $787 billion stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law.
The bill had included a measure from Dodd to limit executive bonuses. But slipped inside at the last minute was an exemption for bonuses agreed to "on or before February 11, 2009." That allowed AIG to go ahead with its controversial extra pay.
For days, no one would say who was responsible for the loophole that let that happen.(CNN)
Turns out that when Dodd said, "When I left the Senate, it was not in there. So when I wrote the language, there was no such language like that," he really meant that he totally included it --- but only because the Treasury insisted.
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