So I have taken some time this morning to read about the history of the "bonuses" for bailed out companies. In all fairness, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) is getting an unfair shake.

The public record shows Dodd authored an amendment that would have prevented "any bonus" being paid to top executives of firms getting bailout money. It was the White House and the Treasury Department that insisted Dodd's amendment be watered down to apply only to bonuses paid under agreements signed in the past five weeks. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has taken public responsibility for that.

The Dodd Amendment was removed in the conference committee between the House and Senate on H.R. 1. The article I link above has a NUMBER of references which quote the Obama Administration as pressuring Dodd for the removal of his amendment. And the language which allowed the bonuses was added secretly by those in the conference committee. The members of the conference committee?

Democratic Senate members Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, Max Baucus of Montana and Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic House members David Obey of Wisconsin, Charles Rangel of New York and Henry Waxman of California. No Republican lawmakers were among the conferees.

And now the blame game ensues. The Democrat finger-pointing has become unreal. Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims it is a Senate-White House issue and that members of Congress had NOTHING to do with it.

Asked to explain what her understanding was of how the looser language came to pass through Congress, Pelosi pointed back at the Senate and the Obama White House.

“This is Senate-White House language,” Pelosi said, referring to the now-radioactive provision. “That is what we are talking about here.

“If you want to talk about what happened in the Senate, go to the Senate and talk to them,” she added.

And Pelosi continuously denied that she or any other House Democrat signed off on the provision, even though the House eventually voted to agree to the conference report on the stimulus bill.

“This was never brought to conference,” she said. “This never came to the House side, and you can talk to any of our conferees. It’s a matter of fact and record.”

Is that right? No members of the House were in that conference committee? Well, let's just see about that.

Good ole Charlie Rangel (D-NY) can always be counted on for putting his proverbial foot in his mouth and he ends up contradicting the Speaker.

Democrats brushed aside GOP complaints. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) dismissed the idea that an outraged public cared who might have changed the wording of the 1,100-page stimulus bill at the last minute, saying, “Nobody back home is asking about the conference report.”

Would that be the conference report that Pelosi says never was seen by House members? Didn't they vote on that before it went to the President?

Oh wait. Let's not leave out Harry Reid (D-NV).

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) referred questions to Dodd. At another point, he said he wanted to start “focusing on the future.”

The future focus would be the legislation to tax the bonuses and giving the Justice Department the authority to restrict bailout recipients from giving out future bonuses. Because of course, no one cares about that language put in the conference report that gave the companies the ability to award those bonuses in the first place thereby removing Dodd's restrictions. And no one from the House knew anything about it. And no one took any money from these companies (cough, Republicans and Democrats, cough) or flew in their jets or served on their Board of Directors, etc...

I can't decide whether to be disgusted by all of this or just roll my eyes and chalk it up to business as usual. I think both.