WASHINGTON — Embarrassed politicos and angry Wall Streeters yesterday denounced the “shi- -y” way Sen. Carl Levin and other senators treated Goldman Sachs executives testifying before Congress this week.
“He turned the Senate proceedings into an episode of ‘Jersey Shore’ — a lot of yelling, expletives flying and no conclusion,” a Republican aide said. “Levin sounded more like Snooki after a night out than a senator.”
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“It was Congress at its worst,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), adding that he was shocked when he first heard the curses Tuesday from Levin (D-Mich.), who spewed the word “shi- -y” 18 times during the hearing.
“I thought, ‘What is he doing? Why is he doing that?’ ” Hatch said. “I thought Senator Levin did a yeoman job of trying to get over his point.”
On Wall Street, hedge fund executive Clifford Press said he was “horrified at the spectacle.”
It was appalling to see “major executives” called to Washington “to apologize and defend themselves for having made money,” he said.
Finance worker Dan DeGroot said the senators didn’t even seem interested in the answers from the Goldman execs.
“It was just grandstanding,” he said. “The questions were shallow, not probing. And I think Goldman is being victimized.”
Wall Street attorney Joe Glatstein said dragging Goldman big shots before a Senate panel looked like a “desperate attempt” by President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress to blame economic woes on Goldman, a financial giant facing civil charges of mortgage investment fraud.
“It’s demagoguery at its worst,” Glatstein said. “I think everyone came out looking poorly, especially Carl Levin, for using the S-bomb.”
At the hearing, the foul-mouthed Levin reveled in a Goldman company e-mail in which a trader talked about a “shi- -y deal” the firm was pushing on clients as the housing bubble began to burst.
“Boy, that Timberwo[l]f was one shi- -y deal,” said the June 2007 e-mail, read by Levin to the Goldman bigs.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended the use of salty language and the tenor of the hearing, saying it was Goldman Sachs’ words coming back to haunt them.
“There is an amazing amount of candor in their e-mails — not as much candor as when speaking to their customers,” he said.
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said his firm was suffering “disproportionate treatment,” but he didn’t challenge the conduct of the senators.
Additional reporting by Kaja Whitehouse and Edmund DeMarche in New York