Who Could Have Dreamed?

by digby

The Muckraker's Zachary Roth has an interesting post up about Chris Cox and the SEC:

In recent years, particularly under Cox, a former California GOP congressman, the SEC has pursued a policy of de-emphasizing enforcement, part of the broader anti-regulatory philosophy of the Bush years -- helping to make Madoff, and perhaps others like him, possible.

"[Cox] in many ways worked to dismantle the SEC," Ed Nordlinger, a former longtime enforcement director in the commission's New York office, told TPMmuckraker. "He slowed everything down. I don't think he believed in heavy regulation."

That view has been echoed by several others in a position to know. Ross Albert told TPMmuckraker for a post published yesterday: "Under Cox, SEC had de-emphasized the enforcement program. Cox worshipped at the same altar of de-regulation that the rest of the Bush administration worshipped at."

Of course he did. He was a right wing employee of the financial services industry. Did people think otherwise?

I never got why everyone was so sanguine about Cox in that job. He was known to be one of the worst partisan hacks in the House (this piece of toilet paper being one of his shining moments.) He never met a big money contributor he didn't like. But he was confirmed unanimously to be the top regulator for Wall Street. If someone repeatedly repeatedly plays the lowest kind of politics and takes huge sums of money from the very people he's supposed to regulate this is exactly what you'd expect.

I'm afraid this propensity among Democrats to "let bygones be bygones" and blame the victim is a terrible weakness that continuously leads to these results. Accountability is not about revenge, it's about keeping criminals and hacks like Chris Cox from destroying the country.


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