Herb Greenberg – Victim of SEC Persecution, or Guilty Dog Look?
Location: BlogsBob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog
Posted by: bobo 2/23/2006 10:34 PM
I just got an email as I was logging out of the little internet café I’m at, and it contained a truly remarkable piece from our good friend Herb Greenberg, of Marketwatch.com.
Apparently he received a subpoena from the SEC in the Gradient/SEC matter, requesting all his correspondence about OSTK, and 4 other stocks.
You can read his somewhat rambling piece here. (Everyone's a critic.)
Now, when I was a kid, I had a dog that had a distasteful quality - he was fond of munching on his own little "treasures."
Some dogs are just like that - nobody knows what causes it, or how to stop them from doing it.
Anyway, whenever he would go into the yard and do his deed (he really was an inveterate poop eater), he would come back in, and have a certain look on his face.
I always thought of it as his “guilty dog look.”
It was unmistakable. Really. I never understood his fascination with his digested meals, but I digress.
It's the look that's important.
When I read Herb’s indignant piece, as he wraps himself in the flag, and apple pie, and the Constitution, etc. filled with anger over the SEC (How dare they!!! This is about free speech!!!) subpoenaing his records pertaining to Gradient, and presumably Rocker, and perhaps other newsworthy hedge funds, I just thought – and I know this doesn’t mean anything….I thought……
Guilty dog.
Don’t know why. But there it is.
Maybe it's the whole lapdog thing. Maybe it's just something that popped into my head, unbidden. Don't know.
Just tossing it out there.
On a more personal note, here's some advice for another scribbler - although I am mostly into writing non-fiction lately, whereas Herb, well...you know:
Herb. Sweety. Babe. Deep breaths. The reason they are coming at you is because they are investigating stock manipulation. That is illegal. Save the whiney, acrimonious, “I talk to all kinds of sources” BS for someone who cares. This isn't Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia and you are not being persecuted. The SEC’s job is to investigate stock manipulation, the shit is hitting the fan, and the previously untouchable network of smug, self-congratulatory parasites are getting subpoenas left and right, and this is just the start. So save it for the courtroom (assuming that there’s anything to all this).
Oh, and Herb? It isn’t about free speech. It's about conduct. As I've said all along.
This is just the first step as they slowly, methodically roll this up, is my hunch.
And you don't want to be like the "underpriveleged youths" in COPS, who invariably when they are pulled out of the car they just drove in a 100 mile chase through a school district, will proclaim, "I din't do it." If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, no reason to mewl like a kitty. Celebrate the opportunity to vindicate your ethical superiority. Revel in it. The glass is half full...
But here’s a question for the Lickspittle, as he is affectionately called by some. I think it's a great question. I would hope someone emails him this question, and reports back to me with the answer:
Did you shut down your newsletter before, or after, you got the subpoena?
It’s just a question. Nothing more. Consonants and vowels with a bit of punctuation. Not even iambic pentameter. Just words.
I'm curious as to the answer...and it won’t necessarily mean anything - we all understand that. But I’m curious.
As to the brave-in-the-face-of-adversity façade, and trotting out 7 year old hits with Aremisoft, puhleese. Either you are a guilty dog, and have been dining on forbidden and distasteful fruit, or you aren’t. No need for 1200 words on why you should be untouchable.
So now everyone needs to ask themselves the same question - are you a guilty dog, or not?
I suppose time will tell. But do spare us all the “I’m a victim” stuff. It doesn’t play – lacks the ring of sincerity, so to speak…
And this time is different.
Any brave reporters feel like calling Rocker now to confirm the subpoena story?
No?
Why is that, do you think?
Copyright ©2006 Bob O'Brien
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By Mark Faulk on 2/23/2006 11:02 PM
Hank wasn't complaining when Jim Cramer wanted to tromple all over Dave Patch's rights to free speech. Payback is a bitch, Hank....and I guess this is as good a time as any to post my recurring reply on the email exchange between the "conspiracy nuts cartel", since it applies to Greenberg so wel, and every one of his cronies:
I hate those sonsofbitches.
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By robelita on 2/23/2006 11:08 PM
I think Herb has his 1st Amendment rights mixed up with his 5th Amendments rights-smile-that was just too entertaining to pass up.
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By bobo on 2/23/2006 11:08 PM
Now, now, Mark. For all we know Mr. Cramer is also a victim of the bad old SEC. Who knows, really?
It does appear that finally this little hive will get their chance to explain themselves. Didn't Dorfman have a similar line about free speech for the reporters as he was hauled off in cuffs?
There are no new ideas. Interesting week so far, no?
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By bobo on 2/23/2006 11:14 PM
Ahem. Let's try to keep this thread on track, and maintain a certain sense of decorum shall we?
Although that might be hard when considering whether the lapdog is a poop eater.
Forgive me. It's late. But that was too frigging funny for me to let go of.
As to the 1st ammendment thing, last time I checked, colluding to manipulate disparate stocks wasn't free speech, it was RICO. But maybe I have my laws mixed up. Don't know. As always, let me just be the voice of caution and reason here, and say, with sincerity, we should keep an open mind.
Hmmm 'kay?
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By capspell on 2/23/2006 11:15 PM
Ha Ha Ha Ha, oh stop , stop. I can't take much more. Ha Ha Ha. Oh lordy. I had a dog like that one time. The only way I got him to stop was to rub his nose in it every time he took a crap. I think Herb may be getting the "cure".
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By Patrick on 2/23/2006 11:28 PM
Herb,
Ha. How odd. You seem to want to pin the blame for this one on me. I am flattered, Herb, but even I cannot arrange federal subpoenas. Talk about pinning your problems on other people.
Now I know why Herb didn't answer me when I shot him an email last week. You see, Herb and I have had a habit for a year or so now of shooting each other occasional emails, questions, jibes (in his case, mostly, with lots of "!"). I used to get a lot of vibes from the miscreants, and had a sense for how cocky they were, when they were worried, etc. It showed up in a number of places.
But I'd lost my sense for that of late (not sure why: I suppose the truth is, I have been paying more attention to my work than to this tomfoolery). And then I got a sense that something odd and unpleasant was happening with the miscreants and their lapdogs: a kind of panic seemed to be setting in. Like in the ring, when you reach the point in the fight where you know you've taken what the other guy can throw, and you start damaging him, and he starts flailing. They have been flailing at O'Brien and me these last few weeks. So on the off-chance I could learn something, i wrote Herb. I really just wanted to know what he understood his situation to be. Maybe I was just trying to get a read on it myself.
Oddly, he did not respond (I say, "oddly" because, believe it or not, normally Herb and have generally been quite civil to each other, behind the scenes). Silence. Not even an exclamation point.
Now I know why.
O'Brien raises a great question: did he shut down his newsletter for a reason? Was it because the Federales came knocking?
By the way, I have no idea, Herb, what they want you for. But this is hardly Judith Burns, arguing about keeping her sources secret. This is you, a crooked research firm, and a couple slimy hedge funds. Kind of hard to say that your phone records are shielded by some great Pentagon Papers kind of principle. I have a hunch about what phone records are going to show in terms of timing, coordination, etc., and I do know what our declarants from Camelback say about you, and the research and statistical analysis I've performed shows some interesting patterns, so I understand why you'd want to hide everything you can. Good luck with that.
By the way, I take back every stupid thing I ever said about the SEC. I wish they had 10X the budget that they do now. Heroes.
Patrick
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of SEC Persecution, or Guilty Dog Look? By Retieff on 2/23/2006 11:29 PM
What's that about companies that complain about naked short selling . . . they deserve it? The same must be true of no-talent hacks that complain about receiving SEC subpoenas . . . they only whine because they're guilty.
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of Persecution By the SEC, or Guilty Dog Look? By tbs_theman on 2/23/2006 11:38 PM
Boy - all those articles in which Herb said how great that the SEC went after all these "crooks" who "claimed" they were innocent. Geez. And up until today the SEC was he greatest organization ever. Fickle journalists...
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Re: Herb Greenberg – Victim of SEC Persecution, or Guilty Dog Look? By Anonymous on 2/23/2006 11:47 PM
<<>>
Pat,
If you are "wacky", I hope to be "wacky" also. Keep up the good work.
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