Ok, revisionist history of course, but at least someone is saying what most are thinking. Stop the politicking and make the necessary changes that aren't just same old same old.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D.New York 5th District, grills the SEC at the Wednesday Financial Services subcommittee hearing, “Assessing the Madoff Ponzi Scheme and Regulatory Failures.”

Ackerman blasts Lori A. Richards, SEC Director of Compliance, Linda Thomsen, SEC Enforcement Director, or Andy Vollmer, SEC Acting General Counsel, for not answering the Subcommittee’s questions or taking responsibility for their failure to protect American investors.

C-SPAN is to the U.S. Congress what LCP-AN is to the French National Assembly: a boring TV channel with few viewers. But as LCP-AN remains constantly boring, C-SPAN can become somewhat exciting when the Congress investigates some of the most shocking scandals (which never happens in France. Well, not the scandals of course, but the investigation). Then, you get the excitment of the good and innocent kid watching the teacher (the congressman) lecturing the dunce (the federal agency that has not done its job) caught in the act of indiscipline.When the scandal is about Bernard Madoff and his $ 50 billion financial fraud, and the teacher who conducts the investigation has the eloquence of Gary Ackermann, and when the dunce is nothing less that the formerly-very-honorable SEC, it gives us some good expiatory moments like this one.Probably not enough to make the golden boys who are watching C-SPAN from a Caribbean beach feel guilty, but quite enjoyable for the average-joe-who-is-tired-to-be-considered-a-dummy.In context,  Gary Ackermann is here referring to the SEC representatives who ignored (knowingly?) a detailed report on Madoff’s fraudulent activities that landed on their desk 8 years ago!