HYPOCRISY INDEED - AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  The indispensable Andrew Malcolm, at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket, makes this observation about yesterday's vaudeville act on Capitol Hill:

Who wants to witness Edward Liddy, who was summoned from retirement only in September as the federal financial paramedic of AIG for the outrageous annual salary of $1, bludgeoned mercilessly for the cameras by the overpowering, hyperbolic hypocrisy of congressmen and women who awarded themselves $4,700 raises in this winter of economic duress? Those raises, making their annual salaries $174,000, will cost taxpayers an extra $2.5 million this year; call it "a bonus."

COMMENT:  I watched that hearing, and thought it was pretty hypocritical as well.  Liddy is one of the good guys, trying to clean up the mess at no salary, yet he was pummelled by these congressmen, who have expressed shock, shock, that there's corruption on Wall Street.  These same representatives of the people never minded the campaign contributions that flowed in from that same street in better times.

March 19, 2009