Still losing from Daily Kos - John Boehner is misinformed or lying (or both)

Apparently, the GOP thinks they finally have a winning issue:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) today launched a new Web video, titled "Mystery Solved." The video highlights the mystery of the Democrats' slipping in the language to the stimulus bill that allowed AIG to deliver bonuses to its executives with hard-earned tax payer dollars.

John Boehner leveled the same attack on Thursday:

Had President Obama not signed the bill, AIG executives wouldn't be getting $165 million in bonuses funded by American taxpayers.

But that just wasn't true, as David Waldman explained at Congress Matters:

Had President Obama not signed the bill, not only would AIG executives in fact be getting $165 million in bonuses funded by American taxpayers, but there would also be no restrictions on any bonuses paid by TARP recipients going forward.

Aside from the fact that Boehner is misinformed or lying (or both), there's three very important things to remember from this:

1. John Boehner and a substantial portion of the GOP caucus supported the original TARP legislation, and that legislation permitted AIG to make these bonus payments. In other words, Boehner and many of his cronies voted for the law that made it possible to pay these bonuses.

2. The stimulus bill included new executive pay restrictions that were not in the original TARP. John Boehner and virtually every Republican voted against the stimulus bill -- and therefore against the new executive pay restrictions.

3. It is true that the stimulus bill failed to impose new restrictions that would have blocked the AIG bonuses. But the stimulus bill did not create a new loophole allowing the AIG bonuses -- the bonuses were already legal.

The stimulus bill should have gone further. But it didn't, and it's not like the GOP was complaining about that aspect of the stimulus bill. Even moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe kept quiet.

So when Republicans act like they've now found the issue that's going to propel them back to power keep in mind that this "issue" is mostly a fiction, driven by the GOP's willful distortion and misrepresentation of the facts and a compliant media eager to ride the wave of legitimate anger at the AIG bonuses and how they were handled.

Mistakes were made all around -- by the Obama Administration, including Tim Geithner; by Democrats in Congress who allowed TARP to pass with insufficient restrictions on compensation; and most of all by the Republican Party, who fought those restrictions every step of the way.

And let's not forget where the original AIG bailout came from: George W. Bush's Treasury Department. And who led Bush's Treasury Department? None other than Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs -- the second largest beneficiary of funds from the AIG bailout.

So if Republicans want to make AIG the issue of the day, fine. Let's have at it. See how they lose.

Meanwhile, President Obama and the Democratic Party need to focus on what people ultimately care about: making sure these bonuses are repaid, that the problem never happens again, and most importantly, that we get this economy back on track.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but pointing fingers isn't going to get the job done.

So the GOP might think they finally have a winner on their hands, but this fact still remains: as long as they are the party of no, their one and only hope for victory is if the nation fails.

Maybe that's why they all love Rush Limbaugh so much.