Kristallnacht?

When Obama isn’t making “jokes” about the Special Olympics or practicing his bowling or selecting his picks for the NCAA playoffs or insulting our allies or kissing up to our enemies, he seems to spend the rest of his valuable time whipping up the mob about AIG.

Fortunately for him, most of the media are still in post-orgasmic bliss about his election and inauguration and therefore don’t ask tough questions or, for the most part, any questions at all. Except, they do seem to be fascinated by Mrs. Obama’s vegetable garden and positively giddy about the proposed White House beehive.

But, unfortunately for her husband, not all the rest of the American public are quite so enthralled about fennel and squash and the prospect of White House honey. Which goes some way to explain why today’s Daily Tracking Poll conducted by Rasmussen shows a positive margin of just 4%. The actual numbers are even starker. 35% only “Strongly Approve” of his job performance while 31% “Strongly Disapprove”. This approval rating is lower than was President Bush’s showing at this stage of his presidency and he didn’t have the mainstream media rooting for him; in fact, quite the opposite.

What is interesting to me though about the continuing saga of AIG is the very selective criticism being leveled. For a start, we know that the wording inserted into the legislation was done by Senator Dodd of Connecticut which just happens to be where AIG is based. Initially, of course, he denied it and then he said that TurboTax Tim instructed him to do it. It’s very hard for me to believe that Geithner would take such a step without the approval and/or knowledge of his boss. But, let’s take Obama at his word no matter how difficult a task that may be, the wording was in the legislation and no one denies it. And he, Obama, signed off on it.

Another interesting twist on all this is that Richard Holbrooke received a bonus from AIG to the tune of $850,000 and this has received no play whatsoever. Could the reason be that Holbrooke is a member of this Obama administration?

Also, completely overlooked by the media and the mob being whipped up by it is that the money allocated to AIG is not a gift, it’s a loan. The company is on the hook for it!

Finally, I was appalled by the news this weekend that there have been organized bus tours of the homes of AIG executives. Plainly the goal was intimidation and what’s even more appalling was that the organizer was ACORN which, you probably recall, was one of the bodies represented by Obama in recent years. Now, I’m not calling them “Brownshirts” just yet but it's a little spooky.