But it hasn't worked out that way. In a fast-paced media environment, the FCIC has commanded almost no attention. And now they're getting the "panel in disarray" treatment from the New York Times:
WHY? NY Times: "We lost a fair amount of time on the front end," said one commissioner, Keith Hennessey, a former economic adviser to President George W. Bush. "Part of it was negotiations between Angelides and Thomas on the senior staff, but I don't know why it took so long to assemble a full staff."
Commissioners also said that Mr. Angelides and Mr. Thomas recently clashed over whether to release preliminary staff reports or some of the 500,000 pages of materials that had been gathered so far. When Mr. Angelides floated the idea of releasing some of the materials to reporters, Republicans threatened to look into the panel's work if they took control of the House, a person briefed on the dispute said. A spokesman for the panel denied that the exchange had occurred.
THEN: Washington Post: The result was a relentless investigation, 12,000 pages of transcripts that laid bare abuses on Wall Street and failures of Washington to adequately regulate the nation's financial system. Pecora's efforts provided a basis for reforms that would alter Wall Street and maintain relative stability in the banking industry until the recent crisis"
NOW: Gary Weiss, Portfolio: "Hey, the public needs ritual flagellations just as much as they did in Salem in the 1600s. In its first two days of hearings in January and February, the FCIC heard testimony from the likes of Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein and John Mack of Morgan Stanley, as well as a passel of regulators. It's great to see people like that squirm--great, but not enough. Indeed, those four words, the ones ending in "not enough," are a fairly good way of summing up the FCIC's work so far. Something obvious has been missing."
THEN: The Crime Of Our Time, "In the 1930's, the commission's Chief Counsel Ferdinand Pecora concluded, "Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker's stoutest allies."
NOW: We still don't know who did what to us, or why not much will change. The investigation is a joke; prosecutions seem non-existent. Why?
News Dissector Danny Schechter's film Plunder The Crime of Our Time has been released in DVD by Disinfo. (plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) which will also publish the companion book, The Crime of Our Time. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
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