FUMBLE: AIG CRITIC GONE WILD

It’s been great watching all the foaming at the mouth in Washington this week about the $165 million in bonuses (or as AIG’s boss tried to put it to a congressional committee “retention payments”) being paid to everyone’s favourite Wall Street bailout recipient, to the tune of some $170 billion with a “b.” And just when it seemed there was literally no limit to the rhetorical flourish applicable to this situation came a great communications lesson for us all – don’t go too far folks. The spotlight is on this new story, so anyone who said something stupid risked becoming collateral damage. Enter pig farmer-turned-Republican Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa) who made headlines by stating that if the AIG executives on the bonus list preferred, they could just kill themselves. “I suggest, you know, obviously, maybe they ought to be removed,” Grassley said. “But I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them is if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide. “And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.” Very helpful indeed sir. Let us set aside the issue of the bonuses. It’s never a “free ride” in terms of communications piling-on. Even in a case this extreme. We all need to think about our messages before we blurt them out. We can help you with that.