This saying is well known and I heard it frequently while in the Army. Simply put, if your purpose is to sow discontent, cast aspersions or just complain then move aside. Like most Americans I'm really pissed about the AIG bonuses; but I'm not really mad about Timothy Geithner's or the President's role in bonus mess. The GOP, however, has seized upon this issue and their leaders (Boehner, McConnell, Kyl, etc.) now want probes into what was known about the bonuses and when it was known. Is this really getting us anywhere? I'm not a lawyer but if AIG entered into contracts that required the payment of retention bonuses then those bonuses have to be paid. Now I suppose Congress could have been clear that bailout funds could not be used to make those payments and if Mr. Geithner knew about the bonuses before hand and didn't make Congress aware then that was a mistake.
My bottom line is that this has become a distraction and so much of one that the Dow is not happy and retreated yesterday and is down by 86 points at the time I'm writing this. Last week and early this week it finally appeared that the market was gaining traction and now this.
So, if all the GOP is willing to do is point fingers and call for probes then my suggestion is that they get the hell out of the way.
