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More reader responses to the "Tone Deaf?" post and my question about what the political up-side is for the Obama Administration in downplaying the AIG bonuses fiasco:

TPM Reader CW:

I agree with Rahm Emanuel. And frankly I think TPM has been devoting far too much time to this AIG nonsense. It's hardly a scandal. It is par for the course. And Emanuel is right, at least for my household and all my friends. My job very well may be cut in the coming months, and with it my very important health insurance. Many of my friends are hopelessly unemployed. That a few rich idiots got a little bit richer off some fraction of my tax dollars is hardly a blip on my radar screen. If things keep headed the way they are, I won't have any income to pay taxes on.

Please move on to something more important than this. I hear about AIG enough on other news sources.

TPM Reader AH:

I think it is important to reiterate that we are, in fact, bailing these guys out. The last time a financial crisis this devastating hit the American economy, the wrong things were done and the result was a lost decade of poverty and stagnation. This time we are trying to do all of the right things but we can't hastily fix these different issues. Right now we have just barely kept these banks alive, the economy might recover, by screaming about AIG bonuses now, we risk derailing what we have done so far which has barely had time to work. Let's get these guys later, after we fix the economy as a whole.

TPM Reader CN:

My experience yesterday on the CTA in Chicago (Green Line, Forest Park into Downtown) was that people were talking about AIG.

I thought I was sitting next to a couple Republicans. She was in sales and into the whole talking yourself into having a great product. And they started by criticizing the people who didn't prepare for the economic downturn (like most people can save enough to lose their jobs for an extended period).

But when they shifted to the AIG bonuses they were angry. She said something like, the rich are always cheating to get ahead.

The Obama administration is wrong to say people aren't talking about AIG. They are. And they are angry.

Team Obama needs to figure which side they are on.

TPM Reader MV:

Yes. They're tone deaf - already.

My husband and I talk about it all the time. Yesterday I went to my hairdresser for a haircut. The first thing she said to me, even before I was fully seated in the chair, was about the AIG bonuses (and it wasn't positive). I'd say it is at the top of everyone's mind.