A lot of noise has been made regarding the AIG bonuses. Obama has expressed his outrage. Congress has weighed in. AIG executives have been harassed in their own homes. So, is there cause for outrage?

Indeed there is, Virginia, indeed there is. However, it may not be directed at who everyone assumes.

As part of the ill-advised bailout plan, AIG has received about $170 billion of taxpayer dollars. One would assume that injecting that much money into a company would buy the American people a little bit of say into how the company is run. And, as far as I’m concerned, one would be right. In fact, Congress has made its wishes known in the stimulus bill. In that, they specifically allowed AIG to make good on pre-exiting bonuses. In fact, these bonuses represent contractual obligations on the part of AIG to its employees. In effect, Obama and Congress are upset that AIG is paying its debts.

It goes beyond that, however. During the uproar, we’ve had President Obama, Senator Chris Dodd (Senate Banking Committee Chairman), who wrote the amendment, and Secretary Geithner (Treasury Secretary) all claim they didn’t know about this. How can this be?

Obama voted for the stimulus bill. Did he not read it?

Dodd was the one who wrote the amendment regarding “excessive” executive compensation, where the exemption lies. After saying that he didn’t know how the exemption got there, he then said it was requested by Treasury. Which is it, Senator Dodd? If you were asked to put it in there, how can you not know how it got there?

Secretary Geithner, for his part, claimed no knowledge, until Sen. Dodd fingered him. Then he acknowledged requesting it.

This means that the Obama administration requested the exemption be placed into law, then made a public outcry when it was followed. On top of that, they tried to cover it up. At best, this screams of gross incompetence. More cynically, it speaks of intentional deception of the American public for purposes of demagoguing the issue for political gain. Is it time to ask “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”

Worse than that, however, is the decision by the House of Representatives to pass an ex-post-facto tax of 90% on those who received the bonuses. That’s right, congress writes the law to give them the money, then they take it back. That would be disgusting enough, however, even without the blatant disregard for the constitution that such a move demonstrates. Using the tax code as a weapon to punish those that the Congress doesn’t like is not just a disgusting piece of legislative abuse, it is also a Bill of Attainder, which is explicitly prohibited in the Constitution. It is also in violation of the equal protection clause and the prohibition on ex-post-facto laws.

What is surprising (or, alas, not-so surprising) is the number of Republicans who have voted for this law, including Virginia’s Eric Cantor. To disregard the Constitution in such a way, in pursuit of crass political points shows that they have learned nothing from the losses in 2006 and 2008. Cantor, and the rest of the Republicans who voted for this, need to find themselves in the unemployment line, come 2010.

The silver lining in all this, however, is the comic value for those who have been paying attention. Not only for the rank sanctimony, but also for the cognitive dissonance. Especially amusing is President Obama telling his Secretary of Treasury, despite all his screw-ups in such a short time, that he would not accept Geithner’s resignation. Yeah, you’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie.