“For the people working in the trenches at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the last year has been the most exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating and infuriating one imaginable. And now things have gotten worse,” writes Floyd Norris in today’s New York Times.

“This should have been the S.E.C.’s year. The issues it had tirelessly pursued — honesty in accounting and corruption on Wall Street — blossomed into central issues of public concern. S.E.C. enforcement officials, who used to be upset by the unwillingness of many federal prosecutors to pursue cases, found new interest.”

“And yet the S.E.C. has struggled with the perception that it was all but irrelevant to the process. It was the Justice Department that made the crucial decisions that killed off Arthur Andersen. And now it is Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, who is reaping credit for cracking down on securities analysts.”

“Harvey L. Pitt was widely viewed as one of the best securities lawyers in the land when he became S.E.C. chairman last year, a few months before Enron collapsed. That he had represented practically everyone was viewed as giving him a wealth of knowledge. But his representation of Andersen meant he had to stay on the sideline at a crucial time. Could a chairman without conflicts have found a way to create a new Andersen? We will never know.”

“Then came the selection of the new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. My views are colored by the fact that early in the process Mr. Pitt asked me to consider serving on the board, an idea that I considered for about a week before deciding to decline. It appeared to me then that Mr. Pitt and the other commissioners were trying to work together to appoint an effective board.”

“To say that the process turned into a fiasco, however, is to put it mildly. It appears that in considering candidates, Mr. Pitt had his chief accountant, Robert K. Herdman, evaluate any potential problems and reach a conclusion. If Mr. Herdman concluded there was no problem, that was where things ended.”