Spare Me Your Outrage!

March 18, 2009 -- Michelle Malkin
ALL the world's a stage, wrote Shakespeare, and in the world of Washington, the curtains have opened on the most elaborate farce of the year.
Welcome, taxpayers, to the Kabuki Theater of AIG Outrage - where DC's histrionic enablers of taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts compete for Best Performance of Hypocritical Indignation.
Over the weekend, cloaked in their finest populist costumes, the Beltway's hair-sprayed and powdered politicians and White House aides took to the airwaves to inveigh against $165 million in employee-retention payments made by the government-backed insurance giant.
The checks were mailed Friday, but the March 15 bonus deadline had been on the Capitol Hill radar screen since December.
But it wasn't until last week that the hapless court jester of the Obama administration, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, scrambled to rein in the payments.
AIG Chief Executive Edward Liddy basically told him to buzz off.

Geithner, the primary architect of the original $85 billion AIG bailout last fall, "reluctantly" approved the bonuses.
And now his outraged boss has ordered him to scour every legal nook and cranny possible to get the money back.
Spare me President Obama's finger-wag. He's "outraged?" Meh.
Two weeks ago, Team Obama forked over another $30 billion for the basket-case company after it reported $61.7 billion in fourth-quarter losses.
That's on top of the first $85 billion round and the second $38 billion round under George W. Bush - both of which Obama supported. (Obama, by the way, collected more than $101,000 in AIG campaign contributions.)

Don't talk to me about how the Obama administration opposes rewarding failure. And don't talk to me about all the politicians stampeding to tax AIG's bonuses.
Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the corporate crony who is the largest recipient of AIG donations, is now leading the charge to tax the retention payments in order to recoup the $450 million the company is paying to employees in its financial-products unit.
But Dodd, it turns out, was for protecting AIG's bonuses before he was against them.
Fox Business reporter Rich Edson pointed out that during the Senate porkulus negotiations last month, Dodd successfully inserted a teeny-tiny amendment that provided for an "exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009," which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax.
Pay no attention to what his left hand was doing. Dodd's right fist is pounding mightily, mightily for the sake of the taxpayers. The hypocritical indignation on the Hill is bipartisan.
On his Twitter page last night, Sen. John McCain huffed, "If we hadn't bailed out AIG = no bonuses for greedy execs."
Well, if the GOP presidential candidate had held fast to his opposition to such doomed corporate bailouts in the first place, maybe bailout-a-palooza wouldn't have spiraled into the gazillion-dollar mess it inevitably became.
If Washington's newfound opponents of rewarding failure want to do taxpayers a favor, how about giving back their automatic pay raises? How about returning all their AIG donations?
How about taking back all the bailout money to all the failed enterprises, from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to AIG, the automakers and the big banks? Barry? Harry? Nancy? John? Chris? Bueller? Bueller?
Exit stage left. The curtain falls.
Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild

An interesting tale

A Very Interesting Tale. She called all of her Democrat neighbors together and said, 'If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?''Not I,' said the cow. 'Not I,' said the duck. 'Not I,' said the pig. 'Not I,' said the goose. 'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen, and so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain. 'Who will help me reap my wheat?' asked the little red hen. 'Not I,' said the duck. 'Out of my classification,' said the pig. 'I'd lose my seniority,' said the cow. 'I'd lose my unemployment compensation,' said the goose. 'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen, and so she did. At last it came time to bake the bread. 'Who will help me bake the bread?' asked the little red hen. 'That would be overtime for me,' said the cow.'I'd lose my welfare benefits,' said the duck. 'I'm a dropout and never learned how,' said the pig. 'If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination,' said the goose. 'Then I will do it by myself,' said the little red hen.She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, 'No, I shall eat all five loaves.' 'Excess profits!' cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi) 'Capitalist leech!' screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer) 'I demand equal rights!' yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson) The pig just grunted in disdain. (Ted Kennedy). And they all painted 'Unfair!' picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities. Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the little red hen, 'You must not be so greedy.' 'But I earned the bread,' said the little red hen. 'Exactly,' said Barack the farmer. 'That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.' And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, 'I am grateful, for now I truly understand.' But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the 'party' and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled. 'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared...so long as there was free bread that 'the rich' were paying for. EPILOGUEBill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs. Hillary got $8 million for hers. That's $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn't remember anything. IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?