I promise to get back to analysis soon, but the ballad of Gary Aguirre is just too good to pass up. When we left Mr. Aguirre, his story was getting its day in the Senate. Chuck Grassley was interrogating SEC officials about allegedly gutting an investigation of insider trading by a hedge fund whose alleged tipper was politically connected.
My take on this story is that it's all about how the NYT's crack opinion meister cum investigative reporter, Gretchen Morgenson was willing to go public with a story based solely on a whistleblower who had no evidence and credibility issues. As recounted in my last post, this is turning into a nice little blowup between the WSJ and the NYT.
An editorial in today's WSJ lovingly summarizes Aguirre's saga – tort lawyer, film student, disgruntled investor (he claimed to have lost $10,000 on a deal because of insider trading), 23-time job applicant at the SEC, finally successful at 61. The WSJ sees this as Grassley courting the NYT to get points as a "populist" with a juicy story about a great Times target – a Bush fundraiser. And as the editorial points out, "[t]he hedge fund industry is also a sexy media target these days, and any new "scandal" will assist the cause of Senators who want more regulation, not to mention more campaign contributions, from the fund industry."
But Grassley wouldn't have had the political traction to take this to a hearing if Morgenson hadn't been willing to retail the story to her newspaper's front page. Shades of L.A. Confidential with Kevin Spacey as Aguirre (or Grassley?) and Danny DeVito as Gretchen. Well, maybe it's not a perfect analogy, but the casting is entertaining to contemplate.
Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
You might be interested in this NYT article, which paints grassley as (you guessed it) a populist!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/arts/design/10stro.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1165771234-BJjPXG+9ndKNTOHuKmIx3g
Granted, the context is a bit different...
Posted by: jack | December 10, 2006 at 01:33 PM