Matt Taibbi has been receiving much criticism from Goldman Sach supporter lately.  This article from Columbia Journalism Review shows just how disingenuous the criticism really is.

I think it most certainly will be. But in any case, mainstreamers dismiss him at their peril. Taibbi represents a challenge to the conventional business press’s increasingly narrow focus, its incrementalism, its concern with petty scoops at the expense of asking the big questions of the big institutions on its beat.

The lesson of Taibbi is that if conventional business journalism is unwilling or unable to step back and take in the sweep of this crisis, and the systemic distortions that underlie it, somebody else will.

What the Columbia piece does not spend any time researching is the vested interest the main stream media (like Gasparino and the Wall Street Journal’s Heidi Moore) have in protecting Goldman.  For example, Gasparino admits he was “invited” to the Goldman inner sanctum and shown the light (and presumably consequences of criticizing Goldman Sachs- like no future scoops from powerful Goldman.  A couple of days later Gasparino’s criticism of Taibbi begins. Coinicidence? –we think not.  Taibbi’s critics get much more revenue from Goldman Sachs than they will ever get from Matt Taibbi or Rolling Stone, so it’s easy to see who gets thrown under the bus.  But the truth in Taibbi’s story is mainstream outside of the financial community, as well as within it and there’s now little the vested interests can do about it.

According to Gasparino’s blog at the Daily Beast, Goldman will repay its Tarp money next week:

According to sources, Goldman appears to be furthest along in getting final approval to repay the $10 billion loan; JP Morgan would have to repay $25 billion. These people, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say one obstacle JP Morgan may be facing is that unlike Goldman, which recently converted from a securities firm into a more traditional bank, JP Morgan has been a commercial bank from the beginning and thus it has large exposure to credit-card debt and other consumer loans that may go sour depending on the length and breadth of the recession.

Another person close to the situation says people at JP Morgan feel comfortable they have convinced both the Treasury and Fed that they should be allowed to repay the money along with the first group of banks that will be allowed to do so; that announcement, these people say, could be made as early as next week.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has made no secret of his desire to repay the TARP money, and according to people close to JP Morgan, he’s likely “to go batshit if Goldman is able to repay before he does.”

Dimon just does not have the power over the administration that Goldman has, so it looks like he will be second whether he likes it or not…