I've been listening in the background to the AIG hearing and I am not hearing enough questions like the ones Steven Pearlstein poses in the WaPo today (see also this NYTimes story on criticisms of AIG's payments to counterparties):

I suspect that when confronted with the prospect of a bankruptcy and a prolonged and public investigation, the sharpies in London and Connecticut might have been receptive to the idea of renegotiating those bonuses in favor of new contracts -- contracts that increased their base pay but tied their bonuses to success in reducing future taxpayer liabilities at AIG.

. . . A more hard-knuckled executive would have gone to the counterparties of those derivatives contracts and suggested that it would be a real shame if AIG were forced to file for bankruptcy, and offered some sort of workout.

[AIG] certainly could have been more upfront with [its] new owners -- the taxpayers -- about not only the bonuses but also the identity of the counterparties to those derivative contracts, who were the indirect beneficiaries of the government's bailout.

More . . .