Posted on: Sunday, November 24, 2002

EDITORIAL
Bush loses credibility after SEC departures

The Securities and Exchange Commission had a third strike called against it as William Webster stepped down as chairman of an as-yet-to-meet oversight board for the accounting industry. He follows into ignominy Harvey Pitt, head of the SEC, and Pitt's No. 2.

It's strange that Webster was the last to go, since it was Webster's performance on the board of directors of U.S. Technologies, followed by their failure to disclose that performance, that cost all three of them their SEC jobs.

Webster, who never claimed to know anything about accounting, may have been something of a victim. His sterling reputation as former director of the CIA and FBI was exploited by the head of U.S. Technologies to veil its deepening accounting scandal — exactly the sort of quality that Pitt needed to make the new accounting oversight commission at once convincing and toothless.

The Bush administration finally supported reform when it became clear the public would accept nothing less. The real measure of its support for effective protections for investors is in its now-departed SEC appointees.

New appointments of the same sort court disaster.