AIG chief lamely apologizes for comparing outrage over bonuses to lynchings of Black people

The head of insurer American International Group (AIG) offered a half-assed apology for his "poor choice of words" today after outrage spread over his comments likening criticism of banker bonuses with the racist torture and murder of African-Americans in the South.

Outrage over bonuses paid to bankers "was intended to stir public anger, to get everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and all that — sort of like what we did in the Deep South . And I think it was just as bad and just as wrong," he previously said. [Reuters]