Don’t look to the Associated Press to hold the relevant actors accountable for the AIG bonus scandal. This piece buries the lede, leaving all mention of the stimulus package for the 14th paragraph, and mentioning the Dodd amendment only in the 26th paragraph:
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., won passage of a provision earlier this year that they said would have prevented the type of payments now at the center of a storm.
It was dropped without explanation in the final compromise on the economic stimulus measure, replaced by a less restrictive set of conditions backed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and accepted by the White House.
“The president goes out and says this is not acceptable and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway,” said Wyden.