Via the TPM link above:
The meeting in question took place on Sept. 18, 2008, between Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and congressional leaders including Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and Harry Reid. The Richmonder, a progressive Virginia blog, noted on Monday that Ryan’s financial disclosure form from 2008 showed that he sold stock in Citigroup and JP Morgan, who were in crisis, the same day and bought stock in Goldman Sachs, which proved to be stronger. The blog claimed that Ryan also attended the meeting. The implication, they stated, was that he was using information gleaned from the briefing for personal profit.
It was wrong. In fact, the meeting with Bernanke took place in the evening after trading hours, meaning Ryan wouldn’t have had time to execute the move if he wanted to.
The Romney campaign said Ryan had nothing to do with the trades in the first place. They were part of a Russell 1000 index fund that automatically traded stocks as part of a pre-set formula. Ryan’s disclosure forms include several similar trade patterns at various points throughout the year.
The apology from Matthew Yglesias over at Slate, linked above:
Let me apologize. I originally had a too-credulous item here linking to a piece at The Richmonder alleging that Paul Ryan has sold bank shares after a closed door meeting with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke on the financial crisis in 2008. As Eric Platt explains he certainly seems to have sold the shares on the same day as the meeting, but the meeting happened in the evening by which time the markets would have been closed. One can perhaps construct a scenario by which the Richmonder's theory of the case holds up, but they don't have the goods and I shouldn't have passed their analysis on with no qualification and so little scrutiny of my own.As Brad DeLong writes, for one reason or another Ryan did quite a lot of trading of individual bank stocks in 2008 so the timing of this particularly transaction isn't particularly noteworthy when put in that context. For posterity's sake the original item is below now in strikethrough.
TPM deserves some credit for thoroughly debunking the claim in the headline and the article below, but not sure if Yglesias deserves any kudos for his "saving face" apology because he didn't even do the minimal amount of confirming before trying to cast aspersions on Ryan's ethics.
Other liberals have decided to run with it and the hell with truth, they can't handle the truth!!!
The Ryan pick has definitely unhinged the liberal left......errrrrrrrrr..... more than usual.
