Pres. Nixon’s feisty late press secretary would have to tip his hat to Robert Gibbs for the brazen stonewall he put up today to Jake Tapper’s line of questioning on what the Obama administration knew about the AIG bonuses and when they knew it. Tapper’s basic point was this: instead of trying to stop the bonuses now, when the administration is in a relatively weak bargaining position, why didn’t the administration demand that the bonuses be killed as a condition for the granting of the latest billions in bailout money given to AIG only a couple weeks ago?

As you’ll see from the ABC transcript, Tapper ventured no fewer than 11 questions going to the point.  But Gibbs had the smoke-and-dust machine turned to ‘high’ and never gave a straight answer. The strong of stomach can view the video for the full exchange. Credit Tapper for his persistence.  With a recalcitrant press secretary before him and a roomful of impatient reporters behind him, it took chutzpah to hang in there.  CNN’s Ed Henry gets a major assist: after Jake eventually had to yield the floor, Henry asked a follow-up on the same subject, and eventually Gibbs had to give some ground, saying he’d “ask the Treasury” why Geithner didn’t review the bonus-granting contracts before cutting the latest check to AIG.

What’s worse about all this is that, two weeks ago, Gibbs told Tapper that the administration was confident, before handing out the latest $30 billion to AIG, that it knew where the money was going.  There are two possibilities here, neither of which reflect well on the administration:

1. The administration did know about the millions in bonuses when he doled out the latest billions to AIG, but didn’t bother to raise the matter until it became a matter of public outrage this weekend.
2. Gibbs protestations of two weeks ago notwithstanding, the administration handed out $30 billion without knowing where the money was going.