White House Foists Bonus Blame on Dodd

Guilty Obama officials seek to shift AIG fault, press plays along
By Gabriel Winant,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 18, 2009 9:31 AM CDT
White House Foists Bonus Blame on Dodd
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, right, and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, left, await President Barack Obama in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Feb. 6, 2009.    (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The White House is trying to pass the AIG bonus blame to Sen. Chris Dodd, pointing to his hand in an executive-compensation clause inserted into the stimulus bill—and journalists are letting it happen, writes Glenn Greenwald in Salon. Actually, the bonuses were only possible because the Obama administration insisted that compensation limits not be retroactive, and dragged an unhappy Dodd along.

“Dodd was the one fighting against the White House in order to apply the prohibition to all bonus payments,” writes Greenwald. Rather than question the administration’s bogus claim, the New York Times has let itself be spun. “The only point here is that what the White House and many journalists are claiming simply did not happen. They're just inventing a false history in order to blame the politically hapless Dodd for what Geithner and Summers did.”
(More Timothy Geithner stories.)

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