On the matter of insurance giant AIG, President Obama has been milking two issues--employee bonuses and payments to foreign counterparties--but he is talking through his hat.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(American Insurance Group Inc.)(Brief article)

On the matter of insurance giant AIG, President Obama has been milking two issues--employee bonuses and payments to foreign counterparties--but he is talking through his hat. AIG was contractually obliged to pay its bonuses; if Obama had wanted to demand concessions from the firm's employees, as the government did in the case of the autoworker unions, he could have done so when AIG came back for a fourth serving of bailout bucks on March 2. Instead, the president makes speeches, congressmen fulminate, and Andrew Cuomo subpoenas the paycheck stubs of private citizens. Now Senate Democrats are trying to concoct a 91 percent excise tax to punish AIG executives--but, since it's unconstitutional to target a particular firm in that way, other financial-services employees almost certainly will be dragged into the fracas. Obama ...