In the blog post referenced above I suggested that Time magazine replace Mark Halperin with MARCY WHEELER!

“Or better yet, why don’t they hire Marcy Wheeler to replace Mark Halperin. She’s obviously a much better reporter on her worst day than Halperin is on his best.”

In my experience, CEO’s hate signing more than a few documents at a time. Mostly, they get a precis of the contents from legal counsel, an aide or the VP responsible for the operations the document pertains to. Only Shrub would sign willy, nilly without knowing the contents, but except in rare cases, CEO’s, like senators, don’t read the whole document.

From the firm’s perspective, that much time mechanically spent signing documents is “wasted” effort. The CEO should be planning the firm’s long term direction; overseeing, cajoling and wood shedding his/her direct reports; rousing the troops generally; and hobnobbing with the firm’s biggest creditors, shareholders and customers. To have devoted so much effort to signing bonus contracts in a short space of time meant it was a big deal.

Bonus contracts aren’t signed throughout the year, distributing the load on the CEO’s pen. They tend to be signed at annual reviews of the firm’s performance. I gather that there is a “compensation season”, like duck and deer season, specific to the financial services industry. During it, the players all peek over the urinal to see whose bonus is bigger. It’s a season that makes yacht and real estate brokers, bars and restaurants extra happy.

As with his knowledge of how dire the straits were for AIG (hence his choice to take stock and $1.00/year salary), or that it declared a loss of $61 billion within months after his arrival, Liddy knew damn well that signing a massive number of bonus contracts when the firm was in free fall was a big part of his job.

If he was doing it, he and the board knew exactly what the key terms of those contracts were, what the range and median payments were, what they were for, and who and which businesses they benefited. The idea that it was “everybody” or a single division is absurd.

Liddy knew he was engaged in a bet the company, double or nothing venture. He knew the game he was playing and relished it. He thought he’d be the winner, humble, resolute, self-effacing and diligent soul that he is.

The only thing I wasn’t sure of was if Liddy would stick around long enough to pick up a promised equity stake in AIG. If he didn’t make it to the dates, then he probably thought the AIG payment wasn’t worth the hassle, he had made out nicely enough with his Goldman stock, and he could make more money, if he wanted, elsewhere.

Rawstory also has a post about someone called Valerie Plame Wilson. When she suffered indignities under the Bush Administration, FDL cared about her plight oh so very much.

But Bush was a Republican, and Obama is a Democrat, therefore no frontpager at FDL will mention Valerie Plame Wilson unless it puts their Leader in a positive light.

fickle friends.