A ringing endorsement on a day marked by the first demand from a GOP congressman for Geithner to resign. Skip ahead to 10:00 of the clip unless you want to sit through The One droning about the need for new regulations amid sporadic reiterations that the buck stops with him. A quick survey on Twitter reveals that I’m apparently the only righty in America to have a shred of sympathy for Geithner. Granted, he’s a tax cheat; granted, he wouldn’t have his job if Larry Summers could survive a confirmation hearing; granted, he announced his economic recovery plan before he had a plan in place; granted, he didn’t know what was going on with AIG until it was effectively too late to stop the bonuses; granted, he’s given to saying creepy things about capitalism that make conservatives shudder; and granted, he has the high forehead and squirrelly look of a vintage comic-book villain. Even so, he’s got an extraordinarily difficult job and people screaming from all directions for immediate results. No sympathy for someone facing that challenge? Teeny tiny bit? Come on — make Ron Rosenbaum happy!

Speaking of AIG, I think we’re just about at the point where the Democrats’ demagoguery starts to backfire, either by scaring away the private investors the feds need to help save the banks or by handing the GOP a hot-button issue to hammer The One with. And sure enough, here’s Eric Cantor hammering away now. Exit question: Will AIG’s proposal to have its employees voluntarily return half of the bonuses quell the populist anger? (Exit answer: No.)

Update: As is true of everything that impedes his agenda, Obama evidently regards the AIG uproar as … “a distraction.”