FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher: Obama Administration ‘Lighting Money on Fire’

ABC News’ Rick Klein and Jonathan Karl report: For a window into some of the liberal angst out there over bank bailouts and the AIG news, we chatted today with Jane Hamsher, founder of the liberal blog FireDogLake, about her online petition drive to press Congress to block further funds for big banks.

On “Politics Live” today, Hamsher spoke to a populist anger that crosses party lines — and that represents a real leadership challenge to President Obama.

Said Hamsher: “My concern is that the lack of political will has to do with the fact that people have no confidence in what’s happening right now. People on the right and the left are looking at all this money being shoveled to banks [by] friends of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers . . .  and they’re not seeing any accountability. They don’t know where the money’s going, they don’t know how much is gone, and it’s all non-transparent and extremely suspicious.”

“You know, the AIG executive bonuses that were just given out are just one example. There’s been no attempt to try and keep those bonuses from happening in the first place,” she continued. “So, you know, there is no public confidence in the process, and until you can restore that confidence, I think you’re just lighting money on fire.”

In this context, what are the chances of Congress approving more money for banks?

“I don’t think there’s any question right now that until they restore some confidence in the system, no one’s gonna give them that money, and I don’t think that’s a Democratic or a Republican consideration. I think that everybody feels that way this morning. The reason that this money went through to the executives yesterday — $165 million — is because that’s the deal that Timothy Geithner cut. . . . Timothy Geithner let these people get these bonuses. This was OK with him, so the fact that this morning we’re suddenly hearing the administration has problems is because the American people have problems, and nobody’s gonna want to face that.”

For many liberal voices, the sequence of events is confirming suspicions they’ve long had about Geithner. Hamsher said she wants to know when Obama himself found out about the bonuses that are set to go out to AIG executives.

“Since this deal went through because Timothy Geithner negotiated it, did Obama know about it and would he have stopped it before hand? Somebody needs to ask him, ‘was this deal OK with you or did Geithner do it without telling you, and was this something that you’re unhappy with?’ Yes, we’ve heard they all think it’s a bad deal, but they put it through anyway, so it’s a good question.”