Three videos inside.
The issue is now purely symbolic. We get it. The bonuses have already been paid. It's interesting to me that the public was first made aware of this issue on Saturday by the New York Times but Treasury and Tim Geithner were working on it all last week.
The contracts should have simply been torn up and the employees of AIG should have been forced to sue for payment. Geithner as the original author of the AIG bailout deserves the blame, and the White House, well aware of this fact, sent everyone out except Tim for damage control. Erin Burnett did a decent round-up on the AIG bonus story this morning on CNBC.
Allow me to reiterate. The White House reaction is all about appearances as they fear the backlash. If Summers and Geithner had actually wanted these payments NOT to be made, this could have been accomplished with a leak to the press early last week. The public outrage would have killed these bonuses in a matter of days. Instead they waited until Saturday when no one was paying attention and the kill-hour had passed.
I have a special loathing for the Obama economic team and it starts at the top. Summers and Geithner deserve 2 weeks at G-Bay, and I'm not talking vacation.
After the jump, we have the complete video of Barney Frank from this morning on The Today Show and a report from NBC's Savannah Guthrie on the fake outrage from the White House.