Fuld has deflected questions on whether he’s unfair, unethical and has committed fraud. He has spoken deliberately, demonstrated little passion and largely stonewalled lawmaker’s questions as if he were a member of the Bush administration’s Justice Dept. Until Peter Welch (D-Vt.) asked Fuld why the government bailed out AIG but didn’t bail out Lehman.

Fuld became animated: “I do not know why we were the only one.”

He discussed how the Treasury Dept. bailed out fellow investment bank Bear Stearns in March, and Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch the week Lehman declared bankruptcy.

He also encouraged questions from Welch and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that AIG was bailed out because Goldman Sachs, where Paulson was formerly CEO, had a reported $20-billion tie to the insurance giant.

With the hearing winding down, Fuld kept saying, “I wake up every single night thinking what I could have done differently. This is a pain that will stay with me the rest of my life.”

On whether the Treasury Dept. should have bailed out Lehman, the committee actually seems in agreement with Fuld.

Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in his opening statement: “Many experts think Lehman’s fall triggered the credit freeze that is choking the economy and made the $700 billion rescue necessary.”

The committee holds a hearing tomorrow on AIG.  Will the committee push the line of questioning encouraged by Fuld– that AIG was bailed out, and Lehman Bros. wasn’t, because that was the scenario most beneficial to Goldman Sachs, a rival investment bank to Lehman?

No one is suggesting that Paulson was merely making decisions based on Goldman Sach’s best interests. But the oversight committee’s work may discover that it was at least a factor.

The committee has produced internal Lehman Bros. documents that show Lehman CEO Richard Fuld resisted claims to limit his compensation and rejected any responsibility for the investment bank’s bankruptcy. Fuld will testify in an hour, and it could get ugly. Rep. Elijah Cumming (D-Md.) wondered how “he sleeps at night”.

But for now, House Republicans are taking turns blasting Rep. Henry Waxman, (D-Calif.) the committee chairman, for not scheduling a hearing on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The committee Republicans contend that Democrats had blind faith in Fannie’s and Freddie’s plan to help low- and middle-income homeowners and ignored the government sponsored enterprises’ risky purchases of subprime mortgages.

Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and Rep. John Mica (R-Fl.) keep circling back to how the Clinton administration built up Fannie and Freddie. The shady accounting practices of former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines, a Clinton appointee, are also fair game.

The Republican seem off the mark. They keep hammering Raines, who resigned in 2004. But the riskiest purchases by Fannie and Freddie happened in 2005-2007.

Democratic and Republican committee members might soon unite in bashing Wall Street’s current symbol of greed, Fuld. But they look far apart in agreeing on how the government helped cause the crisis.