I'm just the guy that can't stand cant. ___________

 
ARROGANCE PITTSONIFIED: Harvey Pitt’s job as chairman of the SEC may now be in jeopardy, though not for Pitt’s failure to do his job. As Paul Krugman notes in his New York Times column today, by not doing his job, Pitt is doing the job expected of him by the Bush administration.

Instead, the reason Pitt’s job may now be in jeopardy is his recent display of arrogance. Since Bush’s colossal arrogance is one of his few actual accomplishments, he may well be offended by Pitt’s acting as if he were a Bush.

As The New York Times reports today, Pitt arrogantly hid from his fellow SEC commissioners that William Webster, his pick to head the new government board overseeing the accounting profession had performed oversight duties as head of the audit committee of U.S. Technologies, a company now facing allegations of fraud. Pitt’s failure to mention this salient fact was particularly contemptuous of his colleagues since the SEC voted to appoint Webster in a 3 to 2 vote only over the strenuous objections of the Democratic commissioners that Webster lacked the credentials to head an accounting board.

Traces of Pitt’s deception can also be found in the SEC release announcing Webster’s appointment to the accounting board. The release contained a glaring omission, describing Webster’s audit committee experience as follows:

He has served on a number of audit committees, including Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc., Pinkerton Inc. and Maritz Inc.

Webster’s highly relevant experience as chairman of the audit committee of U.S. Technologies was somehow deemed not important enough to make the release.

As the Times comments sarcastically in an editorial today, it and other critics of the Webster appointment were wrong in thinking that Webster lacked relevant experience:

A correction is in order here. Last week we mistakenly wrote that William Webster lacked any relevant experience to serve as chairman of the new oversight board for the accounting profession. It turns out that Judge Webster has some very relevant experience, but of the kind that should have automatically disqualified him from being considered for the post, to which he was appointed last Friday.

From April 2000 until last July, Mr. Webster, a former C.I.A. and F.B.I. director, headed the audit committee of the board of U.S. Technologies, a company that is now nearly insolvent. The company and its former chief executive officer are being sued and investigated for possible fraud. Mr. Webster's committee fired the company's auditors in the summer of 2001 when they raised concerns about internal financial controls. Mr. Webster has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but even the most generous reading of his performance would disqualify him from heading a body whose mandate is to establish and police tough new auditing standards.

Pitt’s arrogance in preventing the other SEC commissioners from fulling vetting Webster’s qualifications should also disqualify him from heading the SEC.

Do I really think Pitt’s job is in jeopardy? Not yet. Since Pitt apparently remains loyal to Bush and has not been convicted of any crime, he meets all the stringent requirements demanded by Bush of his appointees. There will have to be a deafening chorus critical of Pitt to jar the Bush administration out of its smug satisfaction with its cronies.

If the Bush administration had any interest in an effective SEC – or even if the administration had a modicum of shame – it would replace Pitt now. Instead, the Bush administration is awash in the arrogance that Pitt now personifies.
posted by Gary at 12:14 PM

 
DESPERATE IN MINNESOTA: A new poll in the Minnesota Senate race validates the Self Made Pundit’s view that the Republicans’ unseemly and mendacious attacks on Walter Mondale within 48 hours of Senator Paul Wellstone’s death in a plane crash were a sign of desperation.

While the Republicans had high hopes of capturing Wellstone’s Senate seat earlier in the campaign – and had run a harshly negative campaign against Wellstone to defeat him – Wellstone had pulled into the lead shortly before his death. In a poll two weeks ago, Wellstone led the Republican candidate, Norm Coleman, by 47 to 41 percent.

In the new poll, the Republican has continued to slip, with Mondale leading Coleman by a solid 47 to 39 percent. The poll also has more bad news for Republicans hoping to turn the race around by attacking Mondale. The poll indicates that Mondale’s strength with the voters has a stable base, with 98 percent of Minnesotans recognizing his name and 66 percent having a favorable image of him.

While more Republican attacks on Mondale are probable, such negative campaigning is more likely to tarnish Coleman’s image than Mondale’s.
posted by Gary at 9:45 AM

 
HAS RETIREMENT MADE NEWT GINGRICH LAZY?: It turns out that the Republican strategy of going negative on Walter Mondale (the Democrats’ likely replacement on the ballot for the late Senator Paul Wellstone) in the midst of memorial services for Wellstone is even stupider than I discussed in yesterday’s post.

You might think that Newt Gingrich has enough experience dealing in half-truths and distortions not to launch the Republican campaign against Mondale with an easily disproved lie. Perhaps Gingrich has gotten lazy since his resignation from the House, but that is just what he did on NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday.

Gingrich claimed that Mondale favors privatization and raising the retirement age for Social Security, citing Mondale’s participation on a commission that recommended such changes for social security systems in countries around the globe. What makes Gingrich’s charge a clumsy lie, however, is that Mondale co-wrote a dissent from the commission’s report, opposing such changes for Social Security in the United States. (Link via Talking Points Memo.)

It’s always risky to launch a negative campaign against a well-known and admired candidate. It’s even riskier if a state is in mourning and the candidate has not even begun campaigning. But it’s practically off the charts of rational behavior to launch such an offensive campaign with an easily disproved lie.

Engaging in such risky behavior smacks of desperation. I doubt the Republicans believe their own propaganda that they stand a chance of beating Mondale.
posted by Gary at 10:39 AM

 
STUPID COP, BAD COP: While more fainthearted politicians might have hesitated to resume negative campaigning within 48 hours of Senator Paul Wellstone’s death in a plane crash, the Washington Post reports that Republicans are already attacking former Vice President Mondale, the Democrats’ likely replacement in the Minnesota Senate race.

Showing that he has lost none of his touch for unintentional irony, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA.) told NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday:

"I think that what you'll see on the Republican side is an issue-oriented campaign that says, you know, if you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize Social Security, Walter Mondale is a terrifically courageous guy to say that," Gingrich said.

Launching negative attacks on Mondale before Wellstone is even buried is not only offensive, it is downright stupid politically. Republican Senate candidate Norm Coleman obviously hopes he can avoid responsibility for these attacks. As the Post notes:

Political operatives said they expect Coleman to use a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, with state and national GOP leaders picking apart Mondale's record while Coleman focuses mostly on a more positive campaign centered on his agenda.

I think Coleman’s approach is more likely to turn out to be a stupid-cop, bad -cop strategy since in this compressed one-week campaign, voters are likely to view all Republican attacks against Mondale as coming out of the Coleman campaign. Attacks against Wellstone’s likely replacement will probably remind voters of the harshly negative campaign Coleman had been running against Wellstone, even if the assaults have now been delegated to surrogates. Voters are more likely to be offended than persuaded by new assaults that are practically interrupting memorial services for Wellstone.

Since Republicans seem to be handling this tragic situation with all the finesse they showed when Senator Robert Torricelli dropped out of the Senate race in New Jersey and they fought in court to effectively give voters a one-party election, the Democrats now seem assured of retaining both the Minnesota Senate seat and control of the Senate.
posted by Gary at 10:19 AM