So... after repeatedly denying his participation, Senator Dodd 'fesses up:"I did it but it wasn't my fault. That bad old Timmy at the Treasury made me do it."

With his tanking approval BEFORE this, if Dodd decides to run for re-election in 2010, the Democrats can kiss that seat goodbye.

Chris Dodd cops a plea: we wrote the bill, and we agreed to the modification

Kari says: This isn't looking good for some of our Democratic friends...

This isn't looking good for some of our Democratic friends? We've got one of your 'Democratic friend' senators calling for the AIG bonus recipients to commit hari-kari (no pun intended)... and the strongest denunciation of the slop-dog senator liars you can come up with is 'this isn't looking good for some of our Democratic friends'?

If Republican senators were involved in this you'd be calling for them to resign before the lynching.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., all but pointed the finger of blame directly at the "Obama economic team" Wednesday for allegedly stripping a provision from the stimulus package last month that would have slapped a heavy tax on bonuses like the ones doled out at AIG.

Asked to whom he spoke with back in February when he was fighting to keep the item, Wyden said, "Secretary Geithner, Larry Summers, and I'll leave it at that."

Wyden said he and his co-sponsor Snowe battled administration officials, trying to convince them that the public would be outraged at excessive bonuses, but, Wyden said, "I was never able to convince them that this was something that ought to be included."

The Wyden-Snowe provision was mysteriously dropped in the early February closed-door negotiations over the stimulus bill -- intense meetings that involved Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama economic adviser Larry Summers, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and budget director Peter Orszag, as well as senior Democratic members of Congress.

alcatross:

We've got one of your 'Democratic friend' senators calling for the AIG bonus recipients to commit hari-kari

You might want to watch that clip again. That would be the REPUBLICAN Senator Grassley from Iowa who made that suggestion.

On another note, watching the interview with Wyden, it occured to me that I have never seen/heard him speak before - and I've only lived in Oregon for 8 years... jeez!

Yes, Republican lurkers and trolls, we look pretty damn bad on this one. Bush is gone, we have no one to blame but our team. But at least OUR senator got it right, so you still can't buy a break in Oregon. And this in no way makes us even for the disaster you right-wingers wrought on this nation and our world by foisting Bush on humankind. So enjoy your day of gloating.

Jim H--you mean you never went to a town hall? Wyden has done one in every county every year since being elected in Jan. 1996. If you hadn't seen him there and elsewhere, you haven't been paying much attention. I generally go to the town hall meetings each year unless I have a conflict. He has done some during the day (one on a college campus during the day, one on a Saturday at a senior center, for instance) and he did one downtown Salem at night one year. They are generally packed (few if any seats empty).

Kari, Who cares what Ron Wyden tried to do if it didn't happen? Politicians spend half their time exchanging congratulations for every little thing they get done - that should be enough. If we start dishing out the compliments for everything else, we run the risk of - dare I say it- a politician proposing something just for the effect. Ron Wyden would have been doing his job if this thing had stuck, but let's not get crazy with the political hero talk. The way I see it Congress had tremendous leverage here to get it right, so nobody has done anything heroic to mess this up. Are you telling me you couldn't negotiate a better deal from a company you were saving with billions of dollars? Please, let's not set the bar too damn low.
I did enjoy Rush Limbaugh's mega-dumb take on this: He supports the AIG bonuses and calls them chump change. Something about the need to get the best people. If these were the best, I'd hate to see the screw-ups.

Larry McD:

With his tanking approval BEFORE this, if Dodd decides to run for re-election in 2010, the Democrats can kiss that seat goodbye.

Bob T:

Oh, I don't know about that. That state is probably full of the same kind of people here who are prepared to reward Sam Adams with re-election even tho' he just took taxpayers to the City Hall Men's Room when he got his way on sports corporate welfare. These voters just won't give up bragging points for having "the first gay mayor of a major city". It wasn't his first case of corporate welfare, and it won't be his last.

Bob Tiernan Portland

Bill McDonald:

Who cares what Ron Wyden tried to do if it didn't happen?

Bob T:

I do. It's important to know that it was attempted, at least. But Wyden should have found an audience for this, or at least one that was larger than the one he found.

Bill McDonald:

Ron Wyden would have been doing his job if this thing had stuck

Bob T:

This might be another example of what you get when government has its hands in too many pies -- it can't be good at a few things, but is mediocre at a lot of things and good at none of them.

Bob Tiernan Portland

I was mainly miffed at Kari's attempt to turn this fiasco into a bragging moment. Quoting the happy talk about Ron Wyden being a political hero...let's just say I think Nelson Mandela's image is safe.

I believe you do more harm to your cause trying to salvage something to brag about when everyone knows this was a giant, stupid, easily-avoidable disaster.

Bob, you bring up Sam Adams. When Sam Adams was questioned about Beau he went beyond a denial and turned it into a bragging moment. Remember the noble mentoring talk even mentioning that he was trying to prevent teen gay suicide by giving some guidance and advice to the 17-year-old? What a guy!

  That was it again. The situation was a fiasco but political types can't resist trying to garner a little positive spin from everything.

  Sometimes you have to acknowledge the hit and take a break from gushing about what heroes these politicians are.

 Especially when they've just screwed up on this level.

Oh, wonderful. We can look forward to another four years of posters thinking that everyone in government is screwing up and wondering why "our guys" are doing what they are. No one will consider a). they're not screwing up; this is the plan, b). they're not "our guys" or "their guys", they are the power behind the throne's guys and they are all the same, c). they aren't even bothering to make it up anymore; things just disappear. The amendment was renditioned out of the bill on grounds of national security.

The butler did it. Usually works in murder mysteries. "The drug warrior did it", works as well in politics. Rangel must have had no small role.

"This isn't looking good for some of our Democratic friends - but Senator Wyden is looking like... well, let the Statesman-Journal say it: Amid this sordid scenario, a few political heroes stand out. One is Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden."

Kari,
  Okay, skip the plausible deniability jive. Read the above and try and say you weren't bragging about Ron Wyden. My point is that political operatives are so hard-wired that they can't help spinning something as a positive. It's what they do. It's a reflex action.

  Meanwhile the country is FURIOUS about this. I haven't seen this kind of focused outrage since the Dubai ports deal - and that was minor compared to this. To try and take the opportunity to say, "Look how great we come off here!" is a level of tone deaf not often seen in the political arena.

I agree with you, Bill. The only thing that makes Wyden look like a hero here is that so many didn't lift a finger and a few well-placed others killed his measure outright. Yes, Wyden did everything we EXPECT our representatives to do. He saw a problem, studied solutions, wrote legislation, did the hard work to get the US Senate to pass it, and fought to protect it in conference. That doesn't - or shouldn't -- make him a hero. It makes him a good senator, and I will happily vote for him again (not that he needs my help with his reelection).

I don't think Kari was encouraging hero worship of Wyden, however. Wyden is national and local news on this due to his central involvement in this debacle, and Kari reports political news on this site. In this political news, an Oregon Democratic senator happens to be looking awfully good, mostly because someone or several someones from Wyden's own party is looking pretty bad by comparison.

For a Western Senator from a small state, Sen. Wyden has received plenty of campaign donations from Wall Street and hedge funds. On a per constituent basis, it's certainly higher than either of Washington's Senators.

Sen. Wyden has been in office for a long time, and served on the financial services committee for much of that time: he is part of the regulatory oversight that failed.

I admit my irritation about this is misdirected at Kari. I find it intensely annoying what has gone on here. The Dems had better realize they don't have many mistakes like this to make. President Obama took responsibility for the foul-up. That was encouraging. We're back to admitting mistakes after 8 years of...well, you know what that was like.

 Hearing that Wyden was "screaming at the walls" as Kari put it - doesn't impress me at all. 
 Having Wyden blame the President's economic team in the media - after the fact - looks like self-serving grandstanding. I failed to get the heroic angle. It reminded me of a kid in a grade school class telling the teacher that the rest of the class might have been bad but at least he hadn't done anything wrong. These matters are too important to be run by spin and covering your ass.   
  We are going to need real political heroes from Congress to get through these times and I can't wait until they show up.

Is Harry Reid, the "Leader" of the Senate, anywhere to be seen or heard on this? How about Ms. Pelosi? The Congress wrote the bill. They rushed it through so they could get their earmarks without giving the public time to respond. The President singed it.
Is there any doubt why Congress continues to have a public approval rating lower than almost any other public body?
Until Mr.Obama tells Congress he won't sign any bill with pork, until he leads by example, we will remain at the mercy of a Congress that knows only politics and compromise. Then there is Chris Dodd, the answer to the "Who Dunnit?" question. I have posts about him here and here If we are looking for a goat, he's our guy.

Bill, Kari's description seems a bit imprecise. Wyden didn't "scream at the walls," he:

anticipated the problem; researched a constitutional solution; found a Republican to cosponsor it; got it passed in the Senate; lobbied the Obama administration hard to preserve it in the conference committee (from which non-Charimen, like Wyden, were excluded).

As for Wyden blaming the economic team in the media, would you have preferred he lie about it? The media knew about the Wyden-Snowe amendment being dropped, went on a witch hunt to find the culprit, and asked the guy who wrote the legislation who in the room did it. I'm very glad Wyden didn't lie, and you should be, too. We need more Democrats to tell the truth, no matter who screws things up.

The fact that these conference committees are held in private, without witnesses and without any apparent rules, was the subject of one of the better posts I read on HuffPost. I wish Ron, or Earl or Peter, for that matter, was a Chairman and got to be inside the room for these conferences, but I would like to see reforms undertaken now to keep this bullshit from happening in the future. Why shouldn't there be press in the room? Why shouldn't the conference participants have to have their name behind every change to the two (House and Senate) bills when it comes out of conference? That is being required of earmarks now - why not the far more important House-Senate conferences?

Jamais, about this:

"it's definitely time to prune some dead branches; Dodd's sounds like a good place to start."

If you want to move to Conn. and start that movement, go right ahead.

But look at how people screamed in Oregon about outside involvement in our Senate race.

Look at what happened in Conn. with Lieberman.

If Conn. voters decide to oust Dodd in a primary, they have that right. But who would replace him?

Better idea just to let press (print reporters, not necess. cameras because then people might play to the cameras) in conference committees.

Who in leadership wants to go public saying print reporters should not be allowed in conference committees given all that has gone on in recent years?

I used to work banquets in a big hotel, so I've met lots of Senators, etc...They often travel to help each other get reelected, etc... Before I get to the point, I should throw in the people from this story that I've met along the way: Barney Frank actually gave a fairly brilliant inspirational speech in Portland one time. He's not without brains. Chris Dodd was very nice. He wore a big sweater and had a booming voice. In fact, they both seemed smart enough to finesse this bill so maybe they have been purchased by the financial industry. Your call. This was surely a poor result with a giant cost to President Obama. But the incident that this post reminds me of specifically is when an old Senator from Florida was here. They were doing what politicians do best: Congratulating each other. The old guy stepped to the microphone, acknowledged the award just given to a fellow politician and said, "It's kind of fun attending a function where I don't get the plaque for a change."

  Elevating any aspect of what has gone on with the bailout to political heroism, is seriously ridiculous.

Senator Dod is the one who killed it; Geithner didn't catch it and Obama wasn't even aware that private companies paid out big bonuses.

This isn't about a blame game. If we really want change we all can believe in, then Senators who take $100k in donations from a company shold recuse themselves from being involved in legislation directly affecting those companies (ala Dodd's $100k in contributions from AIG).

Let's throw someone, anyone, under the bus so we can avoid making the fundamental changes that are necessary.

Here are seven "avoidance indicators" which outline what Obama and his corporatist crew are not doing to prevent another round of greed and misdeeds by the Wall Street few:

(1.) Comprehensive law enforcement for the political and economic elites.

(2.) Anti-trust action.

(3.) Shifting power from corporate bosses to the investors and shareholders.

(4.) Prohibition of banks, insurance companies, and other fiduciary institutions from speculating in derivatives.

(5.) A fraction of one percent sales tax on the hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivative transactions so Wall Streeters pay for their own bailouts and reduce some of the taxes on human labor.

(6.) Use of the cooperative model of credit unions.

(7.) Transition to a “real wealth” economy engaged by and accountable to real people.

(4.) Prohibition of banks, insurance companies, and other fiduciary institutions from speculating in derivatives.

How about adding utilities and having them stop their incessant third party marketing? At least codify it where 51% of their business has to be their nominal activity. Not running an internal hedge fund, not in selling list of names, not in raising fees for revamping websites, whose only "improvement" is to market more third party products to you.

<h2>I blame that horse's ass Reagan with the S&L degreg., and the Bush crime family for how it has gone so wrong. The bank used to give you a phone for opening an account. Now they try to sell you one. It sucks sooo bad.</h2>