A GOP Senator Must Call for Pitt's Ouster

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How depressing is this Harvey Pitt situation? If the president fires him, he will look like he is caving to the Democrats. If he leaves him, the whole restoration of confidence gambit seems to be doomed to failure.

To me, it is hard to believe that we want a guy at the helm of the new accounting standards board who was on an audit committee and is under fire for what sounds like lots of stuff that we created Sarbanes Oxley for to begin with. More important, what kind of vetting process and what kind of communications policy does Pitt have with the White House and the other commission members?

What's necessary, of course, is for a Republican senator to call for his resignation. It is necessary that someone from the Republicans realize that Pitt's just not the man for the job.

Look, don't get me wrong. We are at an extraordinary time when the whole credibility of the markets is in question. I can't go an hour without someone telling me how rigged and corrupt the game is. The people telling me that are not going to be cheered by Harvey Pitt's stay in office.

Sure, some say that Pitt isn't the issue. They say that if stocks were going up, we wouldn't be discussing this. My retort: Hold it, who is to say that stocks wouldn't be up appreciably more than they are if someone had been running the SEC who wasn't proving to be so inept at the basics?

It made no sense to pick William Webster over John Biggs. The only thing that Webster had going for himself was that he was an easy confirm. Now that's been taken away.

What a mess. And it will get worse before it gets better.

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