Harvey Pitt's Job Insurance: Protecting Bush

by Jim Hightower

Indeed, for 23 years prior to being chosen by George W. as SEC chair, Pitt was a Wall Street lawyer representing the very manipulators and corner-cutters he's now charged with overseeing. He's been quite upfront about his bias -- at his senate confirmation hearing last year, Pitt said that the SEC should ease up on the regulation of these poor put-upon giants, and he later told an industry group that he was going to make the agency "a kinder and gentler place" for them.

Because he's been such a toy poodle for corporations that now are proving to be systemically corrupt, Harvey's been taking heat, including bipartisan demands that he resign. But he says he won't quit because he has the "full support" of Bush. Why would the president keep such a weak regulator when the White House is trying to look tough on corporate crime? Because Harvey recently turned into Pitt the Ferocious Bulldog on another agency matter: Keeping the media and We the People away from SEC File No. MHO-3180. This is the file that contains the records of the agency's 1991 investigation into George W.'s own squirrelly stock sale when he was on the board of Harken Energy Inc.

That's old hat, snaps Pitt, asserting that Bush's insider deal "was thoroughly investigated a decade ago. It was meticulously done." Hogwash. In fact, the investigation was so cursory that George W. was never even interviewed. Why? Perhaps because, at the time, George's daddy was president and the head of the SEC was one of Daddy Bush's personal pals. Also, the agency's lead attorney had been George W.'s personal lawyer. Small world, huh?

So Pitt is protecting the file ... and Bush is protecting Pitt. And 'round and 'round we go.