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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 CG:

You don't need any sort of focus group to determine whether people are angry about AIG bonuses. Hell, Facebook status updates are all you really need to look at -- and people are pissed. There weren't many bigger Obama supporters than me, but doesn't it seem like his team looks like they're getting ready to capitulate on this AIG bonus issue? People can be angry about their own job prospects and the AIG thing. We can do more than one thing at a time, just like the President himself. I don't like the direction this is heading. This isn't shaping up to be a Republican vs. Democrat thing. It's looking like a Fat Cats vs. The Rest Of Us thing, and sorry to say, Congressional Democrats don't fit into the latter category.

TPM Reader LR:

Axelrod is dead wrong. People are talking about it. Ask a recently laid-off person what they think about the AIG bailout. Ask anyone whose small business is struggling. They're furious. Most people are concluding that the American taxpayer is being swindled by the financial industry, and the AIG bonuses are a big, obvious symbol of that.

Sure, the amount of money at stake is miniscule compared to the overall bailout monies, but so what? Everyone knows that what you end up hearing about is typically just the tip of the iceberg. What else aren't we hearing about? Where is the rest of the money going--ten billion here, 20 billion there, with no detailed accounting? Who is really benefiting?

The administration has coddled the financial industry, and dismissing the corporate malfeasance as "a distraction" is delusional, wishful thinking. Now that it's tax time, every American is going to be thinking about where all that money it sends to Uncle Sam is going. The idea that any of my money is going to these crooks makes me never want to pay my taxes again. Best of all, the head of treasury is a tax scofflaw! Hell's bells! What kind of suckers do they take us for?

TPM Reader JS:

I think that these comments aren't really directed at the public, I think they have learned from the Bush era that most of the press can be pushed around in what they cover and how they cover it and they are trying to get the press to de-emphasize this stuff. Given how out-of-touch with the rest of the country the Washington press corps is there is some validity to pushing the idea that this isn't as big a deal outside the DC bubble (although I don't know if polling data backs this up or not). Anyway, the establishment press has a history of being mailable so I can't say I blame them for trying to use that fact to their advantage.

FWIW, out here in the "real world" my impression is that while people are angry about these bonuses I don't think this kind of stuff is really any surprise. I think most people have assumed for a long time that the whole Wall Street game is rigged against the little guy.

TPM Reader WC:

Eight of us went to dinner last evening and AIG was never mentioned. Rahm and David are correct. Little of your coverage has told us when the first bailout of AIG occurred, who negotiated it, who signed off on it and who was to follow up with AIG. Rage and ranting achieves little.