Who let the AIG bonus babies get their's?

From the "What did they know and when did they know it" file.......

The White House on Tuesday struggled to explain how it was caught short on the AIG bonus scandal, after promising unprecedented transparency and accountability in the new administration.

“I don’t have a particular tick-tock in front of me,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said, in an hourlong briefing dominated by questions about AIG.

Instead, Gibbs tried to shift focus to looking forward at how the administration would prevent similar embarrassments in the future.
“I am confident the oversight process is working,” he said.

By their own admission, the White House was not aware of the AIG bonus programs until last week, and Gibbs could not say when President Barack Obama became personally aware of the bonuses. The spokesman also did not know whether the Treasury Department or the Federal Reserve has oversight of the massive insurer.

Gibbs did say the president “has complete confidence” in Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, an increasingly embattled figure at the center of a spiraling financial and public relations mess.

White House National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers, appearing on CNBC, repeated the administration’s refrain about the “outrageous” bonuses and also dodged a question about who knew what, and when. “Geithner, as soon as he learned about these bonuses, was focused on them, was in touch with the company, was making clear the government’s expectations within the law,” Summers said.

AIG, recipient of $180 billion in federal bailout funds, is in the process of paying out $165 million in employee bonuses. The company claims it is obligated to make the payouts under contracts signed in April 2008.

Even before the AIG scandal erupted, a poll by the Pew Research Center found 87 percent were either angry or bothered by the federally funded bank bailout. Several polls have found an erosion of support for Obama’s economic policies, even as his personal popularity remains strong.

For Obama, the AIG scandal marks a stark transitional moment between what the new administration promised to do, and what the realities of governance will permit them to do.

After briefly addressing the bonus issue on Monday, Obama retreated to a series of semiprivate events Tuesday and took no questions from reporters. He left Gibbs to deal with a press corps increasingly in clamor for answers — and not getting many.

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