[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/03/24/geithner.getty.art.jpg caption="Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is expected back on Capitol Hill today."]
The hottest seat in America may well be the one directly in front of any Congressional committee investigating the failures at AIG and other banks.
The man who has landed in that seat more times recently than anyone else is the President's Treasury Secretary. Seven times Secretary Timothy Geithner has been forced to testify before congressional committees ranging from The Senate Budget Committee to the House Ways and Means panel.
On Tuesday Geithner makes his eighth Congressional appearance. This time it's in front of the House Financial Services Committee.
Congressional committees are supposed to call in witnesses to gather information for legislation or investigate possible incompetence or wrongdoing. But these aren't always the only reasons.
For many congressmen these very public hearings let their "constituents know you are looking out for them", says Congressional Quarterly's Jonathan Allen. "And there is a value in holding individuals or executives up to public scorn sometimes – the question is how much is too much."
Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) recently told AIG's Chairman Edward Liddy that AIG stands for "Arrogance, Incompetence, and Greed". Other legislators have compared executives at some financial firms to "snake oil salesmen." Senator Charles Grassley (R-IN) even wondered outside a hearing room if some should consider suicide for their actions in bringing down the American economy, although he later said his remark was made in jest.
The University of Virginia's Larry Sabato told us that "anyone who looks at that hearing with Liddy fairly will see that (some of) the Congressmen did go too far, they just became so incensed that they almost appeared to be irrational."
Congressional Quarterly's Jonathan Allen says there are some similarities in the way Congress has gone after AIG to the tactics employed by Senator Joe McCarthy during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Back then McCarthy used his Senate committee position to lead a crusade against more than 200 government workers as "card-carrying" Communists. He also went after college professors and Hollywood.
On CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" Sunday, former Democratic NY Governor Elliot Spitzer said that the outrage against AIG and other banks is "legitimate, but it is being fomented by a sort of faux populism by many on Capitol Hill who saw this coming, who knew this was going on. And so, I look at them and I say, 'Come on guys, you're supposed to be more mature.' Express the anger, but then say, 'how do we solve it?' Don't just throw more oil on the fire."
Sabato has looked at the hearings held since Obama became President and wonders if anything major has "been revealed that wasn't already in the newspapers or wasn't already known by the Congressmen and the administration behind the scenes."
All this concern and criticism may be for naught as Congress takes aim at Treasury Secretary Geithner as he sits in that hot seat for yet another time on Tuesday.