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March 16, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:36
March 16, 2009, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Boy, it's amazing what can happen when you're gone for two days.
You're gone for two days.
Before I left the golden EIB microphone a few days ago, the teleprompter was telling President Obama to be negative.
And while I was away at my charity golf outing, the teleprompter told President Obama to be positive.
Obama's teleprompter is confident now.
Obama's teleprompter is positive.
Obama's teleprompter is bullish.
Obama's teleprompter told Larry Summers to tell you to buy stocks.
Everything's bullish out there.
We're back booked.
Hey, great to have you here.
Rushwind bought a brand new week of broadcast excellence here on the Excellence and Broadcasting Network behind the golden EIB microphone, telephone number.
If you want to be on the program, it's 800-282-2882.
The email address, lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Political story yesterday, folks, they failed.
The Obama administration failed.
They're now moving off of me.
They say they've gotten as much out of targeting me as possible.
And the permanent campaign to destroy Republicans is moving on to another target or targets.
They came after El Rushbo, and it didn't work.
I have to tell you, folks, many of you, I know, are not going to appreciate this.
You're not going to like me saying this.
You aren't going to understand it.
You're going to think I'm out of touch, lost touch, and all of that.
But I'm laughing hysterically at all the hysteria this morning.
And I am seeing everywhere, everywhere, including at Fox News, the hysteria over the AIG bailouts.
Let me tell you something, folks.
I am all for the AIG bailouts, and I am all for the AIG bonuses.
Well, I'm not for the bailout, but well, in a way, I'm for the bailout because I'm for the bonuses.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, I have all of my insurance policies or most of my insurance policies with AIG.
And I would be, it would be a hassle for me if AIG went bankrupt or if they were allowed to fail.
I'd have to go out there and I'd, because I've got, you know, I'm a longtime customer of AIG, and as such, I have preferred pricing like Chris Dodd got at countrywide.
My preferred pricing is simply because I'm a good customer, however, and because I'm a volume buyer.
I have a lot of insurance.
I need a lot of insurance.
I have a lot of insurance with AIG.
If they went away, then it'd be a hassle.
I'd have to get with my broker, sit down, start all over again.
Prices wouldn't be as good.
And I figure, why shouldn't taxpayers bail out the company that underwrites my insurance?
I'm paying a bunch of people's mortgages out there.
Fair's fair, folks.
I mean, if I'm going to bail out your mortgage and a bunch of other stuff, buy your gasoline and, you know, buy your home heating oil and so forth, the least you can do is underwrite the company that's buying my insurance or insuring all of my needs.
But seriously, it is hysterical to watch this.
The dirty little secret is, is that all these people getting all these bonuses are friends of Barack.
Most of the people on Wall Street who have their homes in the Hamptons and in San Francisco and Hollywood and Chicago and New York, most of these people are wealthy, filthy, rich Democrats.
And a lot of this money is going straight to people who end up kicking it back to Obama in the form of campaign contributions and what have you.
Now, this AIG, the bailout, sorry, the bonuses, which came to light yesterday, what is it, $156 or $165 billion?
What is it?
I don't know.
It's chump change when you get down to brass tax.
Oh, it is.
I told you, I know you're not going to understand me.
You're not going to agree with me.
You're going to think I've lost touch.
We need some perspective here.
What is it?
Okay, $165 million in bonuses.
Right.
Okay, so they've got $170 billion in bailouts.
The bonuses are $165 million.
The AIG bonuses are one-tenth of 1% of all the bailout money, not just for AIG, but for everybody else.
It's in their contracts.
What is the number one asset any company has?
Its people.
It's employees.
This $165 million in bonuses is going to help stimulate the economy.
It's going to stimulate the New York City economy.
$165 million, one-tenth of one percent of all.
I know the populist thing to do, the popular thing to come and do here today is bang my fist and be outraged over how in the world can they use my taxpayer money this way.
Let me read to you why they can use our taxpayer money this way.
TARP.
Section 1, short title, Emergency Stabilization Act, Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
Section 2, purposes provides authority to the Treasury Secretary to restore liquidity and stability to the U.S. financial system and to ensure the economic well-being of Americans.
Folks, there were no strings.
Congress attached no strings to the $700 billion TARP money, Zilch Zeronada.
They gave the Treasury Sector, in this case, Geithner, at this point it was Hank Paulson last fall, total czar-like authority to do whatever he wanted with that money.
And I mean, I warned you, I warned all of you back then about the unintended consequences of this.
You know what I want to know, here we have an outrage of $165 million, one-tenth of 1% of all the bailout money, because it's going to people that work at AIG, and they're Democrats.
You have to have the vast majority of all these people getting bailouts are wealthy, filthy, rich Democrats.
Now, look, I'm not playing a class envy card.
I'm not doing anything of the sort.
I'm just telling you who these people are.
The people getting this bailout money, the companies are for the most part headed up by wealthy Democrats.
They are huge contributors.
They are donors to Democrat Party causes.
And I have to laugh at these headlines.
There's just a fascinating story here in the New York Times today, bracing for a bailout backlash.
Let me read this first paragraph to you.
The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks in Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama's agenda.
Now, forgive me for pointing this out, but may I ask you to remember who in hell has been trashing Wall Street every damn chance he gets when he stands in front of his teleprompter?
It is none other than the President of the United States, Barack Obama.
Anger at financial institutions.
He's the guy who's been saying, no more trips to Vegas, no more flights on the corporate jet.
Those days are over.
He has been blaming Wall Street since the campaign.
He has been dumping on Wall Street.
He's been dumping on the U.S. economy.
That is until I left.
Then the teleprompter told him that it was all positive and rosy out there.
Anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House.
This story in the New York Times is reported as if Washington's unrelated to this mess rather than central to it.
Washington is central to the story.
They're not innocent bystanders, and yet they get to be portrayed, and they portray themselves as innocent bystanders at the same time.
Who do you think wrote the TARP bill?
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi.
They wrote it.
Did they put any accountability in it?
No.
Did they put any strings in it?
No.
They gave total authority to Treasury Secretary.
And yet, here's Congressman Frank on the Today Show today.
These people may have a right to their bonuses.
They don't have a right to their jobs forever.
The federal government now is the 80% owner.
It does appear to me we're rewarding incompetence.
So since the federal government now, thanks to the Federal Reserve's use of its power under that 70-year-old statute, now essentially owns that company, maybe it's time to fire some people.
We can't keep them getting their bonuses, but we can keep some of them continuing in their jobs.
These people got retention bonuses.
Well, if they were in high school, they wouldn't have gotten retention.
They would have gotten detention.
Here we go again.
We're upset over $165 million, folks, in the grand scheme of the federal budget.
This is chump change.
Do you know what we're paying to pay mortgages for people who can't pay their mortgages?
Do you know what we're paying people not to work?
It is outrageous.
Nobody is discussing here the outrage at the cost of government.
This is part of it.
Your government did this.
And this administration backed it up.
This administration, Obama, voted for this.
They get all upset here over 165.
Rush, it's the more.
Don't talk to me, ladies and gentlemen, about morality here.
If you want to start talking morality, let's just circle the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and let's talk about the morality of what goes on in there with the money those people spend, the money they waste.
This money went to American citizens.
This money went mostly to American citizens who are registered Democrats.
These people who got the bonus are going to spend it.
That's called private sector stimulus.
But Rush, but Rush, if our taxpayer...
You have no reason to complain.
If you supported this in the first place, and if you support bailing out people's mortgages, people that can't pay them, well, you're having to pay yours.
You can't selectively complain, folks.
Once you vote big government, once you think it's the answer, you have to accept all the inefficiencies.
You have to accept all the corruption.
You have to accept all the outrageousness that you get because you know, using intelligence guided by experience, that that's what's going to happen, particularly when there are no strings.
So now where are we?
Well, they got contracts, these clowns at AIG, so we can't get their bonuses back, but we can fire them.
So you've got the federal government talking about firing people in the private sector.
Who are succeeding?
Do you ever talk about firing people in the government sector?
Do we ever hear about that?
You know, Nancy Pelosi's got gall.
Here she is flying around in all these airport jets, wasting who knows what kind of money, being concerned about this.
She issued the following statement today on news reports that AIG is given $165 million in bonuses to executives.
Here's what Miss America had to say.
While American workers see their wages decline and face record job losses, it is unconscionable that AIG would permit such extravagant executive compensation practices without any accountability to the taxpayer.
Ms. America, there's no accountability because you didn't put any in there.
The ones who got the bonuses did so on the basis of sales success.
These were reported as merit bonuses that they are contractually permitted to get.
If you violate their contract, if you don't give them their bonuses, you have got a lawsuit on your hands.
And 80% of this company is now owned by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Pelosi.
And so they would be sued.
The government would be sued by these people.
Now, I realize, I realize that I'm on the short end of this stick.
I realize I'm in the minority here as I realize the popular thing is to trash AIG and trash this stuff that's going on and on about taxpayer dollars being wasted.
And who do these rotten, dirty executives think they are?
But as I told you, folks, I'm not a man of polls.
I'm a man of principle.
And this is chump change compared to the waste and the fraud that exists daily in the United States government.
Nancy Pelosi said, I have asked Chairman Barney Frank, who, you know who he reminds me of?
The Looney Toons.
I think it was Looney Toons cartoon character, Sylvester the Cat.
I thought it threw a pretty tat.
I thought it threw a pretty tat.
I thought I threw a bird.
To examine options legally available to recover taxpayer funds of companies that abused the privilege of taxpayer assistance.
Larry Summers on Stephanopoulos' show yesterday was asked about this.
Stephanie said, you know, I think a lot of people just don't understand how this can be, especially when these bonuses are going to the financial products division of the company, which brought the company down.
George, look, there are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what's happened to AIG is the most outrageous.
What that company did, the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching, what's proved necessary.
It is outrageous.
We are a country of law.
There are contracts.
The government cannot just abrogate contracts.
Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve System.
Well, let's stand up and give him a standing ovation.
We're going to go back and we're going to get that money.
We're going to make sure that those slime balls that gave themselves bonuses, they pay a price for this.
We're not going to sit around and let all this happen.
Okay, if you're mad about it, fine, folks.
Just do me a favor and be mad at far worse transgressions, waste, and outrage that occurs every day at the seat of government in Washington, D.C. All right, a brief timeout.
We'll be back and continue after this again at 800-282-280.
I just saw this before the program started.
2882.
It's not 2880.
Don't say that.
It's 2882.
The phone number, what do you say?
800-282-2882.
Never mind what I saw before the break.
The snurgly seemed to have the moments lost.
after this.
Before I left the golden EIB microphone a few days ago, Obama's teleprompter told him to be negative on the economy.
He was bashing the U.S. economy, bashing the U.S. stock market, bashing Wall Street every opportunity he got.
We all know why.
He wanted to create a crisis atmosphere and mentality so as to set government up as the solution to virtually every problem he thought and could convince people existed.
And that's why he started loading all of his Democrat pet projects, loading them up and trying to get them rammed through as quickly as he can.
Then I go on a couple days, charity golf outing, and Obama's teleprompter tells him to be positive.
Now we've got Obama's teleprompters confident, teleprompters positive, Obama's teleprompter's bullish.
They're telling everybody to go out there and bet the farm.
What do you suppose?
What was it that you suppose turned Obama's teleprompter from catastrophe to confidence?
I don't think that it was the fact that I was away.
I mean, it could have been Warren Buffett rolling his eyes or Jack Welch rolling his eyes or the business council last week rolling its eyes or it could have been the CHICOMs saying, you know what, we don't think the debt that we hold in the United States is secure and good, wondering how much Obama's spending sprees will depreciate all of the debt that they hold.
So Obama's teleprompter told the business community that it is confident.
He told the ChiCom community that the treasury bills, treasury notes, and treasury bonds are secure, and Obama's teleprompter is confident.
Now, why would the Obama teleprompter all of a sudden turn positive like this?
Are these all the possibilities or are there others?
And I think one of the other possibilities is his approval numbers are not going well.
The latest Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll today shows that 36% of voters now strongly approve of the way Obama's performing.
32%, up from 29, strongly disapprove.
This gives President Obama an approval index rating of plus 4.
That is the smallest or the lowest rating to date.
His overall approval is holding steady at around 56%.
But if you just take the strongly approves and subtract from that strongly disapprove, 36 minus 32, you get 4.
That's not a big spread.
The approval numbers are tanking.
And he's got to keep his approval numbers up in order to get all these other things done that he wants to do.
Health care, cap and trade.
And he also, ladies and gentlemen, wants to be able to raise taxes, as we know.
And you don't raise taxes in the midst of a great recession heading into a depression, as he's been telling us is happening.
So if you want to raise taxes, and by the way, Daniel Henninger, there was a story last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal.
I sent this to everybody I know.
Daniel Henninger had a great piece on what Obama's real plans are.
It's exactly what I told you.
It is returning the nation's wealth to its quote-unquote rightful owners.
Charts, graphs, lines from Obama's budget and his books about what his real intents are about the top one, top 2% of wage earners and wealth in this country.
He wants to wipe them out and redistribute the money.
And he needs tax increases to be able to do that.
He needs the perception the economy's coming back in order to be able to do that.
So all this talk is simply about furthering his agenda.
Okay, President Obama just started dumping an AIG at his little coming out party for small businesses in the east room of the White House.
He said they got themselves into trouble because they were greedy, excessively greedy, yada, dumping on Wall Street again because it makes populist sense to do so.
He just started commenting on it when we, in fact, our microphones are there.
Can we jip Obama ripping into AIG?
I just want to hear how he does.
Yay!
Obama winning the President Barack Obama ripping into this.
Yet, right on, right now, right now, right now, I want everybody to be clear that Secretary Geithner has been on the case.
He's working to resolve this matter with a new CEO, Edward Liddy, who, by the way, everybody needs to understand came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses.
Oh, it's a Democrat, a good Democrat.
Absolutely.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
But Liddy, and certainly everybody involved needs to understand this is not just a matter of dollars and cents.
It's about our fundamental values.
Right, exactly.
All across the country, there are people who are working hard and meeting their responsibilities every single day.
And so that we're paying for.
Government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses.
You've got a bunch of small business people here who are struggling just to keep their credit line open.
They are foregoing pay as one of the things that entrepreneurs talked about.
They are in some cases mortgaging their homes and doing a whole host of things.
Why are you letting them suffer?
To keep things afloat.
Bail out AIG.
What we ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.
Bail them out then.
That is an ethic that we have to demand.
Bail them out.
And what this situation also underscores is the need for overall financial regulatory reform so we don't find ourselves in this position again.
Bail them out.
And for some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions so that we've got greater authority to protect American taxpayers and our financial system in cases such as this.
You mean we already have resolution authority.
Excuse me, I'm up with anger here.
Teleprompter said costs.
We always already have some of that resolution authority when it comes to a traditional bank.
But when you start getting into AIGs and some of these other operations, we have a whole bunch of different financial instruments, then we don't have all the regulatory power that we need.
And this is something that I expect to work with Congress to deal with in the weeks and months to come.
All right.
Bail them out, though.
Well, we're here today to talk about how my administration can help the millions of small businesses bearing the brunt of this.
All right.
That says they really didn't do much except praise the current AIG CEO.
He made an appointment that the current CEO is the guy who passed out the bonuses.
Guy named Liddy.
Edward Liddy.
No relation to Scooter.
This guy passes out the bonuses because it contracts at AIG, and he comes in for praise from Obama.
Now, what does that tell you?
And Obama made the point.
Hey, he came in here long after all this stuff started.
He came out.
He didn't have anything to do with Democrat.
It means Liddy's a Democrat.
Which leads me, ladies and gentlemen, to another point.
This New York Times story talking about Obama, the Democrats, you know, for all their talk, they're always talking about senior citizens and working people.
And here was Obama just now.
He was talking about the pain and suffering of small business, was he not?
When they can't get credit.
They're going to have a little, they're going to have another one of these.
It's a summit here today.
They're going to go out into breakout groups.
They're going to come back and report on what ought to be done with small businesses.
They're always talking about the little people, senior citizens, working people.
But these clowns in the Obama administration are spending far more than Bush and the Republicans ever imagined to bail out their buddies.
Most of these Manhattan business types are Democrats, not Republicans.
What we have here in the Obama administration is a bunch of Ivy League eggheads who have never managed a thing, and they are working hand in hand with these big Wall Street types.
They can sit there and complain about bonuses and all the rest, but they created this situation.
They are funding failure.
They are making us all pay for it.
Everybody has forgotten that all of this financial problem has roots in the subprime mortgage and housing crises.
And both of those crises were started by government officials.
All of the pressure on lending institutions to lend money to people who had no hope of ever qualifying, much less being able to pay it back.
All that was done on purpose by government officials, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, President Clinton, the Community Redevelopment Reinvestment Act, whatever it's called.
And the government created this situation.
They are funding failure.
I said a couple of weeks ago, isn't it time that we pronounced the political cure to this a failure?
All these bailouts have led to no resuscitation on the part of the bailed-out firms.
And the bailed-out firms are now starting to say, no, we don't want the money.
We wish we'd never taken the money.
We wish we'd give the money back because they don't like all the controls on the business that are now part and parcel of having accepted the money.
So they're funding failure.
They're propping up failure.
They're making us pay for it.
There is not a single businessman who has manufactured something or been involved in import-export advising this administration.
They are all Ivy League academics.
They are one of the same mind in most cases.
The Ivy League elites running this show right now, including Obama, Larry Summers, Geithner.
Where are the real businessmen who actually create jobs and create wealth?
You will not find one in the Obama administration.
So these eggheads and Ivy League elites are bailing out these failed big institutions.
They are providing endless welfare programs for those who have made poor decisions or who are poor on the other end, but they're killing the rest of us.
Even though Obama uses the middle-class term to define all he is doing, he's doing just the opposite.
He's bailing out people that can't pay their mortgages.
He's bailing out failed Wall Street titans.
Like he loves the guy running AIG right now.
AIG just makes everybody mad by awarding $165 million in bonuses, but Obama makes it plain and makes a point to single out the CEO at AIG as a great guy and absolve him of anything to do with any of this.
Because these are his buddies.
They are running the show.
Geithner-Summers, Obama, bailing out these big institutions, providing endless welfare programs.
And by the way, I'm not talking about class warfare here.
I'm talking about what they're doing.
If they raise taxes, if they get rid of impediments, if they cut taxes, if they just slash them, eliminate them, get rid of the impediments to success, if they help create an economic environment, promotes wealth creation, these big institutions will probably still go under because they've destroyed themselves.
They've got too much debt.
We're trying to prop up failures because of who's at these failures.
All these people have giant homes in the Hamptons, second homes in ski resorts, and by all means, we have to keep them in their homes.
Now, I'm not, this is not class envy.
Do not misunderstand.
I'm talking about all these Ivy League eggheads hanging together and protecting their own.
They're all liberal Democrats, the vast majority of them are, and they're not going to be the humiliated root of Bernie Madoff.
They're not going to be kicked out of their penthouse apartments.
They're not going to be kicked out of their summer places in the Hamptons or wherever.
They're not going to give up the parties.
They're not going to give up the social circuit.
So they're going to get bailed out.
They're going to get saved, regardless the damage they've done to these companies and the people who've invested in them.
The rest of society is going to keep on paying for this.
Those who are poor or made poor decisions were going to have to participate in improving themselves despite setbacks, as we all have, or they won't succeed either.
That's the way it works.
But to destroy the core of our system, to bail out failed institutions and send wealth to those who've not earned it destroys the entire system.
And what's happening here is giant kickbacks back and forth from the administration to wealthy Democrats at these firms who are being bailed out.
The money will keep circulating in the form of campaign donations.
Can't let these people go under.
It would hurt the Democrat Party.
It's a fine line here.
I sound like class warfare, but what I'm saying is that this is about the Ivy League elitists, not the rich.
Per se.
This is about a certain segment of the rich protecting itself, protecting its political investment, Obama, Obama protecting their political investment in him.
These are not, well, let me tell you, these are the people who fund the Democrat Party.
That's who's being bailed out.
Just put it that simple.
These are the people who fund the Democrat Party.
They live in Manhattan.
They live in the Hamptons.
They live on the main line of Philadelphia.
They have giant penthouses in San Francisco, top Knob Hill, and so forth.
They live in Hollywood.
They are the heart and soul of the Democrat Party.
The really super rich parts of our country are heavily Democrat now.
We don't begrudge them.
We don't begrudge them their wealth.
We don't begrudge it.
But they begrudge us.
And these are among the people who now are being bailed out by the Obama administration because the elites and the eggheads are hanging together.
By the way, I've seen a couple stories recently.
It's actually a good point.
Everybody says, but Russia, there may not be any business executives in the Obama administration, but these are some of the best of the best from business schools that are running these companies.
Why is a business school at a major university like Harvard or Yale or Wharton?
Why are they exempt from all the liberalism elsewhere at the university?
They're not.
You've got all these big business types.
They've been educated as and part of liberal dogma in the business.
What do you think they've been taught?
Well, we're seeing that they don't know how to run businesses.
We're seeing that they know how to run businesses into the ground, and we're also seeing they know how to petition government to get bailed out because they have greased the skids with donations, contributions, friendships, and the good old boys network.
But they're largely Democrats.
They're largely eggheads.
They're largely Ivy League elites.
That's who's circling the wagons to protect themselves with all this.
And when Obama comes out and trashes these people, he doesn't really mean it, and they know it.
They know he's just got to sound populist to sound like he relates to you.
But these bailout, again, the bonuses, one-tenth of 1% of all bailout money so far, roughly.
Quick time out.
We'll be back.
Phone calls, audio soundbites, galore coming up after this.
Already the emails are pouring in, Mr. Snirdly.
People wishing to take pot shots at their host.
Well, because of this Obama bailing out AIG business and the bonuses.
You know, I said that this is just these people get their Democrats.
They're being treated well by government.
They're being bailed out because it's a close clique of Ivy League, rich Democrat eggheads and so forth.
And somebody says, but Rush, you even, when you joined President Obama's address on your show, President Obama said that he's told Geithner to go out there and do everything he can to get the money back that went for these bonuses.
Oh, Tisk, Tisk, ladies and gentlemen, those of you, and it's a relatively few number who have emailed me disappointment.
You wound me to the heart because you're not listening.
Obama's statement is meaningless.
Already Geithner and Larry Summers have said there's nothing they can do.
AIG has contracts.
If they get this bonus money back, if they do not allow the bonus money to be paid, these employees of AIG can sue and get punitive damages.
Obama just said this.
The expiration date on this statement was one half second after he made it.
That statement's not even on the shelf anymore.
Here's what he said.
He said, I've told Geithner to pursue every legal avenue, which means after the pursuit, they'll find there isn't one open.
Every legal avenue will have a stop sign.
There's nothing they can do.
But all you're supposed to hear is, damn it, those greedy SOBs.
I'm getting your money back, gang.
I'm Barack Obama, and I'm getting your money back.
By the way, he has this small business meeting.
He has small business owners up there to talk about his plans for them.
Where was the small business plan in the Porculus bill?
Why you even have to do this?
Why weren't there any plans for small business in the stimulus bill?
We have time for a quick phone call.
Let's grab Gangel Florida.
Rita, you're first.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
The media never mentioned the role of Elliot Spitzer in AIG's failure because in his lead up to his he hounded Hank Greenberg out of the chairmanship and forced the board to install a successor to Hank Greenberg who was acceptable to Elliot Spitzer.
That is.
You know what, Rita?
You are exactly right.
Hank Greenberg is the former CEO of AIG who built it.
Over 40 years.
It was a sterling company.
And he was a major Republican.
I actually did not know that.
All I know is three years later, they needed rescuing.
He's a major Republican and Republican donor.
And I know Spitzer hated him.
Spitzer hated him.
Spitzer charged, well, you know what?
When you get rid of it, he never officially charged Greenberg with anything.
Exactly.
He threatened to.
This panicked the AIG board.
Yes.
And they got rid of Greenberg.
That was how Spitzer operated.
Exactly.
He threatened all of these places.
And Spitzer, I think, was in large part just getting rid of Republicans at these outfits.
Well, he was on his way to run for governor.
Nice populist causes he would take up and target executives.
Right.
So they get rid of Greenberg, and three years after forcing Hank out, bam.
Exactly.
We're in the circumstance that we're in now with the current CEO who I've never met.
But I mean, my insurance underwriters AIG.
And again, I'm happy for the bailout because if I'm paying your mortgage, you can underwrite the company.
It's doing my insurance, folks, the way I now look at it.
Fair is fair, right?
But this new CEO, Liddy, was singled out for praise by President Obama mere moments ago during the small business seminar.
Now, who's in charge when these bonuses get paid out?
Ed Liddy, who was just singled out for praise by President Obama.
You connect the dots.
Big news from yesterday: Obama launches message war to sell budget.
A participant in the meeting described the push as a successor to the message that Rush Limbaugh is the party leader.
We've exhausted the use of Rush as an attention getter.
A, they haven't, but B, it's an admission that they failed.
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