Bodog Beat

Barack Obama fights the evil forces of A.I.G. (Wikimedia Images)

When we at Bodog Beat got wind of the news this weekend that A.I.G. was pulling the same old greedy stunts – paying out hundreds of millions of taxpayer bailout dollars in bonuses to executives again – we said, "Obama won't stand for that shit!"

And we just received a Google Alert that we were right.

The New York Times is reporting that the Obama administration is currently trying to block A.I.G. from the blatant slap in the face to American taxpayers of giving huge bonuses to executives.

Obama said that A.I.G. found itself in dire financial straights due to "recklessness and greed," adding that "In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury."

He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner “to use that leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

“Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses at all, much less $165 million in extra pay,” Mr. Obama said. “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?”

A.I.G. has collected over $170 billion in bailout money.

“All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses,” Obama said. “All they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules."