House and Senate Democrats along with Attorney General Dick Blumenthal announced they will hold a good old fashioned Stalin show trial Thursday when the Banks Committee holds hearings on how AIG personnel got their bonuses. After 20 minutes of pandering to a mob-scene of a press conference at the Legislative Office Building, Banks Committee chairmen State Rep. Ryan Barry, D-Manchester, and State Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, conceded that their subpoenas were not being answered by a dozen AIG executives who live in Connecticut. Both pledged a secure environment for participating in the public.

But the Connecticut media wasn’t buying it. After they spoke, Senate Republican leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, turned the entire conference inside-out by saying the public hearing would be nothing more than a public show trial and that those testifying would be in danger once they left the LOB confines.

McKinney artfully suggested the committee call U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd to the stand. He is a Connecticut resident and has some insights into the AIG deal.

At that point, Blumenthal looked stricken and Barry was forced to come back to the microphones and assure that all would be safe. But that didn’t stop Blumenthal from posting the names of the AIG bonus babies from having their names posted on the AG’s website. Blumer should pray no one gets hurt out there because of his blood lust for publicity. Connecticut residents should be very concerned that an elected leader and the state’s lawyer has decided he will be judge and executioner for people that did nothing more than sign a contract and take a check.

House Republicans want to change the state wage laws that AIG cited as the reason they honored the bonus arrangements. Democrats are more concerned with getting on CNN Thursday to show their “outrage.”