Since when did Senator John McCain get religion on regulating the American financial industry? Oh, I forgot: He had a ‘born again regulatory experience’ when his handlers showed him polling data on how he could help his Oval Office ambitions.
Does Senator McCain think he can top Ronald Reagan's legacy as the ‘Great Communicator’ by recasting himself as the ‘Great Regulator’? Does he think that the free market fleece of a sheep can be dyed to make him look like the Big Bad Wolf of Wall Street regulation?
Why is McCain calling for S.E.C. chairman Cox to be fired when it lay within his own power for many years as a U.S. Senator to introduce legislation to make the S.E.C. do its job rightly, if only he cared. Some of us have been writing about Wall Street's malpractice for years. Now, Johnny-come-lately is here with his political boasts. McCain has no credibility in speaking stridently about Wall Street regulation now. None! He shows himself to be the opportunist he is; and no opportunist, nor demagogue, should be the U.S. President.
I say, with Paul Farrell, Marketwatch columnist, that the U.S. public missed the right president for this crucial election when we looked past former U.S. Comptroller General, David Walker. (See Farrell's column on September 8, 2008.) Walker is a statesman worthy of the office. Instead, we have partisans who are not above dissembling when it serves their purposes.