The Grassley Center for Seppuku Studies

It's getting dangerous for financial executives to go out on the street. People on the street want blood and U.S. senators want disembowelment. Well…sorta.

From Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) at a Cedar Rapids radio station yesterday:

…I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.

And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.

Obviously, the honorable senator from Iowa clarified his statement via a spokesman. But legal scholar Jonathan Turley gets in a great "Ohhh Snap!" on his blog:

Grassley suggested that AIG executives do the honorable thing and commit Seppuku. The problem is of course that ten of his colleagues immediately demanded $10 billion for the study of Seppuku techniques and the creation of Seppuku centers as part of the proposed second bailout bill.

After the zinger, though, Turley gets to point:

Of course all of the outrage on the Hill is meant to distract attention from the fact that members and the White House did not care enough to properly structure the bailout to bar such payments. Instead, as is often the case, they rushed to spend hundreds of billions of dollars without proper time or preparation on the details like an economic Patriot Act debacle.

Ok, so the second comment doesn't sound as cool. But neither does an explaination from Grassley on why he voted for bailouts in the first place.

Feeling a little upset about the bailouts and bonuses? Well, relax and watch this great clip from Kobayashi's 1962 hit Seppuku: