December 8, 2008 1:15PM

John and Andrew and Dick and Eliot

By Ray Hennessey

There's an irony in the fight now developing between Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain and N.Y. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Thain, according to the WSJ, is fighting with the compensation committee of Merrill to get a $10 million bonus he feels he's entitled to. The committee isn't keen on the idea of paying it out, particularly since most of Wall Street has seen its execs forgo bonuses. Cuomo, who has been critical of Wall Street pay, says he finds it 'shocking' that Thain is seeking bonuses of that size.

Put aside the merits of each camp in this. There's actually some history repeating itself. Eliot Spitzer, before his short but wonderfully entertaining tenure as N.Y. governor, went after NYSE chair Dick Grasso because of his pay and ultimately forced Grasso's ouster from the NYSE in 2003.

Thain, you'll recall, was shortly thereafter tapped to become NYSE CEO, a job he held until being picked late last year to run Merrill.

So, in short, Thain got his job because of a row between a financial executive and a N.Y. attorney general. Because of that, he should know to tread lightly. These wars are often nasty, and rarely fought on the merits of the arguments.

Or, maybe Thain knows that some things are worth the battle. The Grasso lawsuit went away, Dick kept all his compensation and Spitzer got into trouble for briefs of a different kind.

UPDATE: WSJ now reports Thain is requesting no bonus. Probably a politically smart move.