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Barry Molefsky: ‘You praised Arthur Levitt for being a good SEC chairman, but it was on his watch that all the shenanigans took place. Pitt has only been SEC chairman for 11 months.’

☞ I think if you do a Google search you will find an awful lot of positive comment on Levitt. He was very active – and effective – in pressing for reforms that helped the small investor. One key area where he tried, but was blocked by powerful interests (some of them represented by Harvey Pitt), was in trying to end the conflicts-of-interest he saw in the accounting profession.

YOU THINK I’M ACERBIC – HOW ABOUT MAUREEN DOWD?

Last week, Maureen asked . . . ‘Can a Bush – born on third base but thinking he hit a triple – ever really understand the problems of the guys in the bleachers?’ It comes from this biting column.

We have certainly had wealthy Presidents who identified with the masses – look at FDR. But this President told us from Day One that a tax cut for the top 1% was overwhelmingly his first priority, even if it meant going back into deficit, nixing a robust prescription drug benefit, letting schools crumble, or anything else. (Of course, he didn’t phrase it with quite that spin or I think he would not have been elected.) He is totally entitled to see the plight of the best off as the nation’s top budget priority. But the rest of us are entitled to be horrified.

The other profoundly frustrating thing is the way the press is only now getting around to vetting candidate Bush’s claims and background. Just how accomplished an executive was he?

(“Hold on!” you may object – I know many of you do – “why are the President’s business dealings relevant?” That’s the question Paul Krugman explored yesterday.)

Tomorrow: Dick Davis #26-#28