But He Said He'd Respect Us in the Morning! [Mark Krikorian]
Gridiron singed by Obama no-show
... And make no mistake: President Barack Obama deciding that he is too busy to attend the Gridiron's annual banquet later this month is a slap. He's the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the white-tie-and-tails affair in his first year in office.
The official line from the Gridiron Club — a society of Washington reporters, columnists, and bureau chiefs — is, "We understand."
But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don't understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, "People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.
03/16 01:13 PMShare
Casting the First Stone . . . [Victor Davis Hanson]
I am mystified by Barney Frank's desire to recall the AIG execs' bonuses, not so much over the idea that corporate-welfare recipients should not have grandstanding demagogues chastising them for their hypocrisy, but rather the notion that someone of Frank's ethical past would play Old-Testament railing prophet. Quite aside from his former partners (the gigolo fellow who used Frank's facilities for illegal activities, and the other boyfriend Herb Moses — self-described as part of the "congressional gay-spouse caucus" — who, as an exec, was helping to make Fannie policy at the very time Frank was voting on its appropriateness), Frank received more than $40,000 in campaign contributions from the bankrupt Freddie and Fannie, despite his own role as supposed fiscal watchdog on the House Financial Services Committee.
A modest suggestion? Let us agree on the following: No more corporate fat cats partying, jetting, and bonusing around after their tottering companies got federal cash; and all congressional-people and senators who took any contributions from any corporate or quasi-government entity that is a recipient of federal bailout money, must pay that money back, plus interest, to the government. After all, as in the Madoff mess, these congressional-people usually got the cash at a time when their benefactors were already in trouble, albeit hiding their fraudulent or unethical practices through cooked statements and high living. So please, Representative Frank, Senator Dodd, and all the rest — give back all that campaign cash to our government, and then in silence endure what you helped to conceive.
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