While Congress tied itself in knots with anger and revenge over the $165 million in AIG bonuses and the Obama White House fell behind popular rage with no clear solutions, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was doing the real work.
From day one, Cuomo vowed to get bonuses returned or he'd shame the AIG recipients with subpoenas and disclosure of their names. That did the trick.
At least 15 of the beneficiaries of AIG's generosity (with taxpayer funds, mind you) have returned bonuses totaling $50 million. Harvesting the remaining $115 million is problematic because 47 percent of the money was ladled out to foreign AIG employees in Europe and thus beyond Cuomo's reach.
Were politics, such as Cuomo's possible run for New York governor in 2010, involved in his highly publicized crackdown? Probably, but who cares?
Results count. Cuomo used the old-fashioned muscle of a prosecuting attorney rather than joining the chorus of politicians in Congress who want to pass a punitive law when they're angry.
Cuomo took the initiative, which the White House should have done instead of babbling initially that nothing could be done to recover the bonuses.
A left-handed compliment also is due AIG executives who returned bonuses. They wisely understood they didn't deserve rewards for failed workmanship that led to AIG's downfall. More important, they also pondered the prospective public shame of being branded greedy by Cuomo as simply not worth it to their reputations or their future job prospects, whatever and wherever they might be.
