[1]I am neither a lawyer, play one on television, nor give press conferences pretending to me one. In other words, I am not Barack Obama, Helene Cooper, New York Times [2]:
WASHINGTON – President Obama vowed to try to stop the faltering insurance giant American International Group from paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives, as the administration scrambled to avert a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street that could complicate Mr. Obama’s economic recovery agenda.
“In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury,” Mr. Obama said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”
While I an not a lawyer, unlike the President who claims to be a lawyer, I realize that first year law students are required to study contract law. In other words I have seen The Paper Chase [3]. Evidently watching old movies leaves me with a better know of law than the President. Further, while bankrupcy judges have the power to void employment contracts, the President has no such authority delegated to him by the Constitution, nasty thing that.
More over, Karl, Patterico’s Pontifications [4], wants to know why BO limiting his rage to AIG employees while ignoring public employees who took AIG money:
As Pres. Obama tries to lead the “outrage” over bonuses paid to execs at troubled insurance giant AIG – and AIG’s payments to foreign banks, etc. – with the taxpayers’ money, let’s take a moment to remember which taxpayer employees got paid by AIG:
So what do Senators, Dodd, Baucus, Kerry, McCain and Schumer have to say?