What is it with President Obama that he can talk but when it comes to "the walk" there isn't the fortitude?  From the Wall Street Journal (h/t Talkingpointsmemo.com) reports:

President Barack Obama said Monday that he would "pursue every single legal avenue to block" $165 million in bonuses to American International Group Inc. employees who were in part responsible for the insurance giant's near collapse. But hours later, administration officials said the payouts made Friday couldn't be extracted from their recipients without a legal fight that would cost the taxpayers even more.

But wait what does that mean?  Well, AIG produced a white paper about their "contracts" and Emptywheel, Firedoglake.com, provides the understanding:

In other words, I take this to be a threat: "if you don't give us our bonuses, we'll trigger a default event that will cost AIG the US government tens of billions of dollars."  It's just a polite way of saying, "Pay us the $100 million ransom or we start exploding the suicide bomber vests we're wearing."

Terrorists in three piece suits are much worse than terrorists living in caves.