The Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin Gives Goldman a Rubdown

Taibbi Blasts Andrew Ross Sorkin for cozying up to Goldman; first for conflict-of-interest:

Dealbook, if it was determined to take startup money from Goldman, should have stayed agnostic about the great scandals swarming round the company for a good long while. I had heard several times over the winter that some Times reporters were upset about that Dealbook sponsorship deal with Goldman, and now I can see why... What makes it especially galling is that Sorkin neglects to mention the sponsorship situation in his piece.

Then for dubious arguments in favor of Goldman's "market neutrality":

First of all, I have asked Goldman about the "Big Short" multiple times, as have other reporters, and this is the first I'm hearing about $5 billion in long bets in "other parts of the company." I believe in that magical $5 billion about as much as I believe in the mythical private-sector hedges against AIG Goldman claimed to have. You might remember those -- they were the reason Goldman claimed it didn't actually need the $12.9 billion in public money it got through the AIG bailout, because it would have been paid off by private hedges anyway had the government not bailed out AIG. Goldman took the $12.9 billion of the public's money anyway, however, but not because it needed it -- no, sir!

And for a red-herring argument anyway:

And when Goldman told investors in the Hudson deal that their interests were "aligned with" their clients because they owned a tiny stake of a few million bucks in the deal -- leaving out the fact that Goldman had a $2 billion short position against the deal -- is that any less of a lie if Goldman's "big short" was $5 billion instead of $16 billion?

And there's more. Read the whole thing.