Jim,
You're a little fuzzy here. Robert Reich was the diminutive Sec'y of Labor for Slick (they were buds at Oxford when Slick was smoking dope and hiding out from the draft); RR is a fairly witty and urbane fellow, often a talking head on the talk shows these days and back at Harvard's Kennedy School, I believe.
Arthur Leavitt was the head of the SEC for Clinton and my understanding is that Joe Lieberman was at the head of staving off any sort of realistic reforms, etc. Don't forget that the most egregious (and best covered up) bailout of Wall Street's peccadilloes was the little gem, that pas de deux performed by Bob (Goldman Sachs) Rubin and Alan the G, when they bailed out Goldman, Citibank and a host of others while putting bandaids on LTCM (read Lowenstein's book on the subject). LTCM was headquartered in Greenwich Connecticut which, surprisingly, is the state Joey represents. Hmmmmm. Too big to fail? LTCM? Naw, but the guys who would have bled big time were TOO IMPORTANT to ignore. Talk about money politics.
Harvey Pitt was a premier partner at a major firm (Weil Gottshal, I think) and the absolute right choice for the job at the SEC. The fact that he and his firm represented Arthur Andersen (and perhaps Enron, but I'm not sure) is pretty much irrelevant. If you knew anything about the ways and means of the top 20 or 30 law firms (I'm not saying you should, I'm just saying if you did) then you'd know that due to the nature of the business (the complexity of the deals) and the multiplicity of parties to any one mega deal (at a minimum, two principals, usually more like 6, 2 investment bankers, often 3 or more, toss in a few accounting firms and an actuarial firm or two) then you'd get pretty far down the list of Cleary, Skadden, Davis Polk, Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thatcher, Weil Gottshall, etc. PDQ. I can just about guarantee you that the top 20 firms (and by definition, their partners) all represent Arthur Andersen, Morgan Stanley, Goldman, Citigroup, JP Morgan regularly and in rotation, in one way or another. When I started out on Wall Street my firm represented Morgan Stanley in several underwritings, sat across from them on several acquisitions, and sat catacorner to them as bond counsel on several acquisition financings.
The fact that Pitt's firm represented Andersen is about as meaningless a fact as is available. Unfortunately, it is very seizable by the totally ignorant press as somehow "significant." It ain't.
The "campaign finance" reform bill is nonsense and ridiculous. Guaranteed with its "silent periods" to lock incumbents into their offices even more than before. Try running against Fritz Hollings (quel gasbag) if you can't run ads for 60 days before the election. Fortunately, it is most likely unconstitutional as against the 1st amendment, which kinda makes you wonder why these career criminals (the Congress) are going through these motions at all. I guess, so when the dust is settled and the law is struck down, they'll be able to go home to South Carolina or Peoria and pound their chests like silver back gorillas and claim "I was FOR campaign finance reform, I'm for the LITTLE GUY. It's just that %$#@# Supreme Court, you know."
It's win-win for them. On the slim chance that it passes constitutional muster, it helps them retain their seats. If it's struck down, it's a "positive" talking point.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme merde,
Kb |
