"Absolutely not". "Oh, wait a minute, sorry, I did do it".

Those diametrically opposite comments are from Christopher Dodd, one of the bigger imbeciles in the U.S. Senate, who was forced to do a 180 degree turnaround from his forceful assertion on Tuesday that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the provision in the stimulus bill that allowed the bailed-out insurance firm AIG to award retention bonuses to certain staff. The very same provision, mind you, that Dodd condemned in Congress on Monday by vowing to tax the greedy charlatans at 100% in order to get that money back (in direct violation of the ex post facto clause contained in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but who's noticing?), to waste on more important frivolities, most likely.

Here, boiled down for simplicity, is how this fascinating story basically played out over the last few days:

"Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday night floated the idea of taxing American International Group bonus recipients so the government could recoup some or all of the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial products unit."

"On Tuesday, Dodd denied to CNN that he had anything to do with the adding of that provision."

Now, one day after denying responsibility with the fervor of St. Peter, Dodd is forced to crawl back to CNN to apologize and state that it was indeed he who inserted the provision that has had everyone all atwitter recently. Get some popcorn and watch him dip and twist around having to fully explain himself:



Nice dance, Chris. Too bad it isn't working.

At least he managed to correctly mention that previously agreed-to employment contracts between AIG and the workers in question were in place and are presumably enforceable in court, and that the employees could sue and probably win additional damages (as much as triple the original amount) should they be unilaterally denied the compensation due them. Of course, just as with mortgage contracts, the Obama administration seems to think that they can ignore any and all such pesky little legal issues like these whenever it suits their fancy, regardless of the rule of law in this country regarding such matters.

The question begs asking, though - just why did Dodd stick that exemption into the bill in the first place? Enrichment, of course, which is apparently the only way that things ever get "accomplished" on Capitol Hill:

"Separately, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org."

Which means that the good legislator is most likely hopelessly compromised professionally, just like he was compromised personally when he received a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Mortgage, another business that, much like AIG, failed mainly due to pressure from Dodd and his buddies to give housing loans to people who simply didn't qualify for them.

Really, all of this manufactured outrage over the 165 million dollars in bonuses (bonuses that "Turbo-Tax Tim" Geithner and President Obama have known all about for quite some time, incidentally, despite their plaintive denials. The information was right there in AIG's November SEC public filing; the ability of the public, and presumably public officials, to read and discover important information from those documents is kind of why businesses are required to make those types of filings in the first place) is only a convenient distraction from the trillions of dollars in deficit spending that's currently being crammed down the peasants' throats. Get the serfs all hot and bothered over a relatively paltry sum being spent to retain the people best suited to get AIG back on the right track (remember, we were told that the company "was too big to allow to fail"), all the while soaking them for untold sums in order to advance the Messiah's socialist agenda.

One has to admit, it's certainly working for His Holiness.

At least so far.