"AIG Bonuses, Congress and Radical Transparency" (MSNBC-video)

NetMovement, with full text and video from MSNBC (04:20):

The Nation's Ari Melber and The Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter discuss the economy with MSNBC anchor Alex Witt.

Witt: The president is in the middle of an apparent campaign style blitz to sell the public on his multi-trillion dollar budget. Hell be holding a prime time news conference Tuesday, 8pm Eastern time, which will top off a week spent lounging with Leno, and dishing details on his NCAA brackets, even using his grassroots website to turn popular sentiment toward his budget. I'm joined now live by Ari Melber, regular contributor to The Nation, and Amanda Carpenter, reporter and blogger for The Washington Times. Good morning and welcome back to the two of you.

Melber: Good morning.




Witt: Amanda, is the president walking a fine line between star power use and over using it?

Carpenter: Yea he definitely is, I mean its good for people to have access to the president, to see him on these shows and him to perform well, that said, he needs, there's a growing recognition that he cannot solve problems with a speech or a press conference. Everyone knows at this point that he is a thoughtful and charismatic speaker, but I think what people going to be looking for more and more is to find out if hes going to be a good president in terms of policy.

Witt: Ok Ari, Im curious about the New York Times, whose Frank Rich who writes: A charming visit with Jay Leno wont fix it, A 90 percent tax on bankers bonuses wont fix it. Firing Timothy Geithner wont fix it. Unless and until Barack Obama addresses the full depth of Americans anger with his full arsenal of policy smarts and political gifts, his presidency, and, worse, our economy will be paralyzed.

You know is even some New York Times columnists turning on the president here, I mean can you believe this?

Melber: I do believe it, and I thought that the Frank Rick piece today was excellent. And there was another moment in the the column where he says that too many of the officials who have presidents ear are marinated in the insider culture that turns against transparency and against accountability. I think thats right, and while Ive supported certain aspects of the response to the economic crisis by this administration, Ive obviously not supported the bonus problem and the lack of transparency, and a huge issue here that were seeing all this week over how this bonus went down, is not confined to the bonus, because the entire process has not been transparent and accountable enough. Its our money and we need radical transparency, radical accountability, and people to take responsibility for this, from the bankers and out to the congressional committees and the presidency. So its not acceptable I dont think, for President Obama and his aids to say we didnt see this coming, when the record reflects that they did, its not acceptable to say we dont know how certain provisions that would have prevented this dropped out of early pieces of legislation, when we know that they knew that, and we need more accountability for it, I think Frank Rich is right.

Witt: Amanda, what are you seeing on the blogs relative to this, this big media blitz?

Amanda: Well I think people are genuinely curious to see how hes going to handle this and I agree with you know my friends statement in that people want to see more transparency in this system. This was one of the reasons President Obama won the election, he promised more transparency and its a huge problem that the stimulus bill was rushed through in such a fast, harried fashion where people just cant get their arms around it, and were even finding out now that recovery.gov wont be fully operational maybe for another year,

(Crosstalk)

Melber: Yes if I could just

Carpenter: (unclear) Barrack Obama told people. Yes, go ahead.

Melber: If I could just second Amandas point there, we have been habituated to this crisis legislation process, and you can blame both parties for this, but the bottom line is we cannot continue to tackle every problem in this crisis mode, this packed mode, as Amanda said, where you have three days to it and theres no real oversight and the public doesnt get their voice in it. That's wrong and that's part of the systemic change that we need..

Barack Obama