Will Geithner's Head Roll?

From David Espo at the Associated Press:
For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG.
Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this mess on their own.
Professing shock at the bonus payments, Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses, a maneuver that almost surely will be tested in the courts.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner enjoys President Barack Obama's confidence, according to the White House.
But the mood is less charitable among congressional Democrats. Republicans have made Geithner their top target . . . .
"It's shocking that they would -- the administration would come to us now and act surprised about these contracts," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate GOP leader. "This administration could have and should have ... prevented this from happening. They had a lot of leverage two weeks ago."
That would be when the Treasury Department decided to make an additional $30 billion available to American International Group Inc., the huge insurance conglomerate deemed too big to fail by two administrations.
Which goes to the crux of the Democrats' current political problem.
Gone are the days when they could merely bludgeon the Bush administration and promise to seek bipartisan solutions to the nation's economic problems.
Now, in control of the White House and Congress, they are struggling to come up with an explanation for what no one in either party seems moved to defend.
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