Early on the White House seemed to be saying executives at Astounding Institutional Greed were owed their bonuses totaling $165 million because of contractual obligations. Now in the face of howling public outrage, President Obama says he is disgusted, and will try to block payment. One can only hope the aggrieved parties sue. Please, please get this before a jury.

Let ordinary Americans deliberate over a piece of the bailout story. Astounding Institutional Greed was the beneficiary of $170 billion of taxpayer money. For months AIG refused to say what happened to that fantastic sum. Turns out it was passed through to financial institutions also in dire straits. AIG went belly up because it invented new ways to lose money, and they all worked. Croupiers in executive suites imagined new forms of insurance but it could not be called insurance because that would invite regulation and require setting aside reserves for, well, this kind of mess. AIG's contrivance sure seemed like gambling, but it sought a legislative dispensation to say, no, it was not gambling.