When is a government watchdog not really a watchdog?
When he rolls over and lays at the feet of his master rather than sink his teeth into a program that he’s been tasked to guard.
Such appears to be the (unsurprising) case with Herbert Allison, Jr. (pictured), a former Wall Street executive (Merrill Lynch and TIAA-CREF) until he was appointed president and CEO of Fannie Mae in 2008, after it was put into conservatorship. Subsequently President Obama named (and the Senate confirmed) him as overseer of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion asset acquisition fund that bailed out Wall Street financial institutions. He served in that role for about 15 months, until September 2010.
The IRS scandal that revealed targeting of conservative groups by the Treasury Department has reopened speculation that the Obama-orchestrated auto bailouts unfairly targeted Republican-leaning dealerships for closure. Republican Congressmen Mike Kelly (PA) and Jim Renacci (OH) have penned a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew requesting documentation so that an investigation can determine what criteria was used to shutter dealers that appear to have had one thing in common: their political affiliations.
I recently wrote about how 
A watchdog for the government's bailout program, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), has hit the US Treasury Department with a hard combo of critique regarding some of the Administration's actions since pumping billions of taxpayer dollars into bailed-out companies like General Motors and Ally Financial (formerly known as GMAC). 
According to a 
In the coming weeks we are sure to hear a lot of hype over the upcoming General Motors IPO. As we approach the November elections, it is a certainty that the Obama administration will tout the government intervention and nationalization of a major US industrial corporation as a huge success. Claims have already been made that the American economy and millions of jobs have been saved by bailing out GM. There are many people, including the Mom and Pop investors that financed GM through their bond purchases, who see a less savory side to the bankruptcy process and view it as a model of corruption and cronyism.
Call it a paradox. The U.S. economy officially has been out of recession for 15 months. The stock market enjoyed a record-high September; durable goods orders are up; and consumer spending is growing. Yet homeowners continue to lose their properties at a frequency not seen since the Great Depression. And this is despite - and possibly to some extent, because of - an emergency federal program in place for the past year and a half designed to stave off foreclosures. Call it instead, then, a consumer bailout. But don't expect it to end soon.
Probably not. Seems like the more that 
According to 
