The Artful Dodgers in Washington

Well, folks, they're livid. And we're livid. They're livid because we're livid. And they're busy squawking about just who our ire should be directed at.

I'm talking, of course, about our Congressmen and Women in Washington. You know, the ones that spout endlessly about standing up for you and me, the little folks. The big, bad villian of the day that they are nobly taking on for us are the greedy, no-good folks at AIG who (gasp!) were awarded bonuses (BONUSES!) after taking $185 billion of government bailout money.

When the news of that broke a couple days ago, the Republic was (how to put it politely?) royally pissed. And we have every right to be. It is an utter disgrace that our capitalistic system has continued to allow those who have failed to make good use of the capital to reap rewards commensurate with success.

Our trusted officials in Washington were mighty quick to join us in our gnashing of teeth. Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) is planning on holding hearings into how the bonuses came into being. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) was disgusted, offering that "Maybe it's time to fire some people. We can't keep them from getting bonuses but we can keep them from having their jobs." Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala) summed up the sentiments: "This is horrible. It's outrageous."

Even President Barack Obama weighed in on the matter, saying that he was "choked up with anger."

That sure is a lot of righteous anger going around up there in Washington. There's only one problem. There was an amendment to the $787 billion stimulus bill passed by both houses a month ago that states the following:

"The prohibition [on bonus payments] required under clause (i) shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or the designee of the Secretary."

This amendment fully justifies the bonus payments that were part of the contractual obligations between the recipients and AIG, as negotiated prior to February 11, 2009.

Some have referred to this as the Chris Dodd amendment and suggested that, by inserting this amendment into the bill, Senator Dodd is doing a complete about face on his original position on bonuses.

Look deeper, however, and it may have become evident that certain folks in the Obama administration threw Dodd under the bus in order to save their own butts and deflect critism from themselves.

Regardless of how the amendment got in there, 60 Senators, 246 Representatives and one President cannot escape the fact that by voting for and signing the stimulus bill, they all but guaranteed those bonuses would be paid at AIG.

Now one begins to understand the haste with which our officials joined us in casting stones at the terrible, amoral corporate fat cats. If they didn't pick up the stones quickly and start throwing, we might just realize who was really to blame.