The Art of Political Distraction

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
NYT Week in Review

WASHINGTON — The questions flew hard and fast at President Obama last week as he stood on the White House South Lawn, preparing to escape for California’s gentler climes. How, Mr. Obama was asked, would he quell public anger over $165 million in bonuses for employees of the bailed-out insurance giant, A.I.G.?

“I don’t want to quell anger,” he replied. “I think people are right to be angry. What I want us to do, though, is channel our anger in a constructive way.”

It was too late. By the time Air Force One took off, Congress was in full-recriminations mode, with the usual hearings and declarations of outrage. The A.I.G. chief executive, Edward M. Liddy, was pleading with bonus-takers who got more than $100,000 to give half the money back. The search for culprits — Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner? Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman? Mr. Obama himself? — was in full bloom. That old Washington question was back: Who knew what, and when?

But something else about the scene rang familiar: it was a sliver of news, seemingly a side issue, run amok. In the grand scheme of today’s taxpayer expenditures — $787 billion for economic recovery; another $700 billion to shore up shaky financial institutions; who knows how many more billions tomorrow — the A.I.G. bonuses amount to small change. But the small change became a big deal in an instant, dominating the talk shows and threatening to undermine Mr. Obama’s domestic agenda.

“This is the kind of issue Washington chases like catnip,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, lamented in an interview. “What would be a mistake would be to get so distracted by the catnip-chasers that we lose our own path. We are not going to do that.”

(More here.)