Lies for the purpose of distracting attention from all his other, daily, screw-ups.
The Snake and the Forehead must have discovered that demagoging the AIG bonuses issue polled well.
I think it's a whole lot of to-do about something they were fully aware of in an effort to distract attention from the fact that in two weeks the House and Senate are planning a vote on the Obama 2010 budget.
That thing wasn't going well as people realized the details of it, so now they've manufactured a new news story to keep the budget out of the headlines.