Goldman defends itself — or at least, tries to

Image via CrunchBase

Apparently, the big New York Times piece on the relationship between Goldman and AIG (okay, I’m self-serving — I’ll link you to my blog piece on it) has really struck a cord at Goldman. It has posted an item-by-item response on The Huffington Post (okay, fair is fair — here’s the link to that).

The responses seem namby pamby to me, using words rather than facts. But I’m not ready to go to the mat on that, maybe there’s more substance than I’m picking up on.

I can’t quite understand the choice of Huffington Post as the venue for combat, though. Toyota, after all, took full-page ads in newspapers detailing its recalls — and apologizing, while it was at it. Goldman apparently doesn’t think it has anything to apologize for — but it still seems to me that an ad, maybe even a double-truck, would make sense. Goldman certainly can afford it.

Why doesn’t it tackle the Times on its home court, buy ads in the business section to tell its side of the story? I don’t think Blankfein et al are silly enough to say they won’t financially support the paper that blasted them. But imagine the impact of an ad that says, The New York Times got it maliciously wrong — running in the New York Times??!! And I don’t think the paper would be silly enough to refuse to run it. If it did, think of the impact of an ad in, say, the Wall Street Journal that trumpets the fact that the Times declined to accept it?

All told, a muddled PR response in the Huffington Post seems way below the fight-back level I’ve come to expect from the Bad Boys of Wall Street.