Perhaps the most entertaining part of the House hearing, yes. But while the New York Democrat yelled at the SEC, whistleblower Harry Markopolos spoke more softly but cut deeper the day before.

Ackerman's five minutes of fame passed the audio-visual test, but not the smell test.

The SEC deserves harsh criticism. But when it comes to the Madoff scandal — and the role of the SEC in trying to control Wall Street's conniving bankers — Congress stinks it up too by consistently undermining the SEC.

More on that in a minute, but first, more on Ackerman:

There are 14,000 brokerage accounts that make up the latest list of Madoff's victims — "Swindler's List," as L.A.'s Jewish Journal and others call it — and 2,000 of them are Long Island-based, Newsday reports. That's one in seven, and the largest cluster of Long Island suckers — 600 of them — is in Great Neck. And Great Neck is one of the most influential towns in Ackerman's Congressional district, which stretches along Long Island Sound's "Gold Coast" of rich people. Nassau County itself is the nation's 10th-richest county.

Yesterday, I pointed out Ackerman's standing as an ardent loyalist of the Jewish lobby AIPAC loyalist (and a past recipient of campaign money from Madoff). And Madoff, as we well know, leaned heavily on his own Jewishness.

Philip Weiss (the former Observer columnist who got hounded out of there because he dared to write provocatively about Israel) noted that in December 2008 in "Madoff and the Israel lobby." Weiss quoted one of his readers as remarking that "the Madoff event may be the greatest example of intelligent people being blinded by ethnocentrism I've ever seen."

It's no wonder that Ackerman was so pissed off at the SEC. He couldn't blame Madoff's wealthy victims, who, after all, are his constituents. He may not have known that Madoff himself was a monumental goniff, but he and other Jewish Democrats knew very well who the prominent party fundraiser was. No-brainer that Ackerman put on a good TV show; no brains if you think it's consequential news.

Instead of looking at the cameras, Ackerman should be looking in the mirror, notes Seeking Alpha, the largest stock-market blog (and hailed in 2007 by Time as one of the top 50 websites).

The New York-based outlet aimed at investors puts the blame where much of it should be. In "Congress Should Look in the Mirror Before Attacking the SEC," GT McDuffy notes:

McDuffy is just getting warmed up. And I'm going to include a lengthy excerpt. Just as James Lieber's must-read "Up in Smoke: What Cooked the World's Economy?" in my own paper probed and poked at Wall Street's machinations, McDuffy jabs at Congress for its role in the fiasco.

The differing perspectives of the two pieces sketch a good portrait of the Wall Street crime scene. Ackerman's incredulity was phony, as McDuffy's credible screed points out. Hence, this long excerpt from McDuffy:

You don't have to be Jewish to understand where much of the blame for the Madoff scandal and other Wall Street shenanigans should be levied.

Good for the New York Times! Always trying to take a broad view (even when one doesn't exist, as Jack Shafer often points out), the paper weighs in on how the plight of Bernie Madoff's white-haired victims gives us valuable insights about the global meltdown with this morning's "Fossils of Largest Snake Give Hint of Hot Earth."

Good info that the "prehistoric snake" was "a giant relative of today's boa constrictors." The elderly Madoff wasn't the first, nor will he be the last, snake to swallow your money. Wall Street is really is a dangerous place, even for celebrities — see the latest list of Madoff's victims.

Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos's testimony yesterday on Capitol wasn't quite as colorful, but the bookish-yet-tigerish accountant was pretty damn intense, as I previously noted.

Among other fascinating details, Markopolos told the dazed House members that he planned to deliver to the SEC today a "mini-Madoff." The agency is sure to accept this silver platter with respect and care.

President Barack Obama, on the other hand, is showing me no respect with his $500,000 limit on CEO pay ( VIDEO). To get a bailout, I have to limit my pay? I don't think so.

While I wait for my manservant to dress me, I'll also point out that the Times story "Daschle's Ambitions Collided, Friends Say" does little more than say what I already said yesterday. The Times was more polite.

Please click on these items. Pretty please...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

CNN: 'Toyota shuts down all but one assembly line'

N.Y. Post: 'BANKS' MONEY WELL SPENT'

Newsday: 'Drilling leases on Utah land scrapped'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Twins' rage: Coward could never face our father'

N.Y. Times: 'Senate Adds Homebuyer Tax Credit to Stimulus Bill'

N.Y. Post: 'O WARNS OF "CATA$TROPHE": URGES STIMULUS OK AMID MOUNTING RESISTANCE'

Wall Street Journal: 'Forget Golf: Street Junkets Get Junked'

CNN: 'Overseer calls for bank bailout makeover'

Financial Crisis Update: 'SEC Official Endorses Central Counterparty for Credit Default Swaps as Global Consensus Grows'

N.Y. Times: 'Daschle's Ambitions Collided, Friends Say'

N.Y. Times: 'Science Found Wanting in Nation's Crime Labs'

N.Y. Post: 'ON WALL STREET: WHO COULD LIVE ON $500K?'

Wall Street Journal: 'Study: 9/11 Lung Problems Persist Years Later'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Cops on hunt for suspect in brutal rape in East Harlem laundromat'

N.Y. Times: 'Boo Hoo in the Boardroom'

Wall Street Journal: 'Faith-Based Program Gets Wider Focus'

N.Y. Post: 'AMAZIN' AMBUSH! SHAMSKY'S ANGRY EX POUNCES'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Cheney: Beware nukes'

Wall Street Journal: 'Gaza's Isolation Slows Rebuilding Efforts'

N.Y. Times: 'Societal Cost of Meth Use Is Gauged in New Study'

Bloomberg: '"Failed" Wall Street Forces Biggest Rewrite of Rules'

N.Y. Post: 'PLAYBOY'S ROCKER SCRIBE RIFFS ON STREET ROGUES'

N.Y. Daily News: 'The great Big Apple sports broadcaster debate'

N.Y. Post: 'SMOKING FEATHER OF FLIGHT 1549'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Lehman judge charged with hitting wife gets lawyer'

Bloomberg: 'Soros Imitators Reap Riches in Financial Whirlwind on Global Macro Funds'

Forbes: 'Buffett Sinks Billions Into Swiss Re'

'Sandy Koufax, John Malkovich among Bernie Madoff victims as court filings are released'

From the Daily News:

Boston Globe: 'The whistleblower: Dogged pursuer of Madoff wary of fame'

U.S. News & World Report: '5 Things to Know About Whistleblowing'

Bloomberg: 'Madoff Said Only Brother Could Do Audit, Witness Tells Congress'

Whistleblower Lawyer Blog: 'Whistleblower Protections Added to Economic Stimulus Bill Passed by House'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Photo gallery: Madoff's victims'

N.Y. Post: 'DIVORCEE BIDS TO 'EX'-TEND MADOFF PAIN'

Whistleblower Lawyer Blog: 'Hedge Funds Face Regulation & Oversight by SEC--Will There Be Another Compliance Tool in Addition to IRS Whistleblower Program?'

Fortune: 'Did Madoff's feeder fund shop for friendly audits?'

AP: '[Massachusetts] pension fund fires 2 managers'

N.Y. Daily News: '$1B of swindled funds uncovered, Madoff's alleged vics to get paid "in the near future"'

N.Y. Post: 'HOW SEC BOZOS BLEW IT: WHISTLEBLOWER RIPS DO-NOTHING FED "FLEAS"'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Car dealer hopes to say, "I Madoff with 100G"'

N.Y. Daily News: 'GM Omar Minaya says Mets will not go after Manny Ramirez'

After only part of this morning's House hearing starring Harry Markopolos, there's little doubt that Bernie Madoff's true identity is Dr. Evil.

What else can one think when House members wondered aloud whether there are "mini-Madoffs" or "medium-size Madoffs" lurking in the Wall Street wastelands.

Markopolos answered in the affirmative and said he plans to "deliver a mini-Madoff to the SEC tomorrow," adding, "Hopefully they listen to me this time."

The House Financial Services Committee members agreed that this time the SEC will probably listen to Markopolos. There's no hint, however, of who Markopolos is talking about.

A mini-Madoff! Like Mini-Me! Cool!

But speaking of Dr. Evil, Markopolos also pointed out (as I and some others have) that Wall Street's fraudsters couldn't pull off their schemes without Mayor Mike Bloomberg's proprietary sophisticated hardware/software machines.

There's no other way, many say, to conjure up the increasingly sophisticated financial instruments that ruined Wall Street and will no doubt ruin it again during the next bubble.

Bloomberg is supposedly the biggest philanthropist in America; he got the money from the sale of his machines on Wall Street.

Which leads to the question: How could Mayor Bloomberg not have known the various nefarious uses to which his machines could be put? Of course he knows.

Which leads to this: Wall Street's meltdown happened on his watch, and it was created by his pals — his customers — at the Street's big banks. So why didn't he stop it or at least see the signs of an impending disaster?

If not him, who? If not then, why not?

And now he wants another mayoral term to keep our streets supposedly safe when the only street he knows — Wall Street — has become the most dangerous stretch of pavement in the country?

Just wondering.

Markopolos didn't make that point, but he did say that the SEC operates at a tremendous disadvantage in trying to understand the complex schemes of the Street's white-shoed gangsters by not having nearly enough Bloomberg terminals. Give the SEC more Bloomberg terminals, he told the House panel, because the fraudsters and scamsters have them.

Wild-eyed Harry also has a beef with the press: He contended that a Wall Street Journal reporter (whom he didn't name) was very interested three years ago and was willing to fly to Boston to meet with Markopolos but that the reporter's editors were scared off by Madoff's power and reputation and nixed it. (For more on that, see Gary Weiss's post on Seeking Alpha.)

Treated with extreme deference, Markopolos is surely one of the most brash witnesses to testify on Capitol Hill in quite a while. And well-prepared — browse his lengthy (but entertaining) written testimony if you can't wait for the sound bites later today.

Of course, he can back it up, having warned a decade before Madoff confessed to his sons that Bernie was a fraudster.

At least, Markopolos can back it up for now. His hubris, his zealotry, his sense of certainty — they make you wonder whether Markopolos, like Madoff's scheme, is too good to be true.

Anyway, Markopolos's halo — or is it his intense eyes? — cast an eerie glow for now on the scene of perhaps capitalism's all-time worst disaster.

California Democrat Brad Sherman noted that Markopolos isn't just some "wild-eyed populist." Sherman was half-right. Markopolos is definitely wild-eyed — he has the look and tone of a zealot — but he's also the staunchest defender of capitalism one could imagine, and that includes Ayn Rand.

And imaginative, too. Markopolos raised the intriguing notion that retired Wall Street bigwigs, people with little or no hair, as he put it, should be hired by the SEC to replace the young whippersnappers who now infest the agency's lower ranks.

Markopolos reasons that veterans won't have to do it for the money, because they've already made theirs and that they would be foxes able to sniff out the rotten eggs in the henhouse.

This probably won't happen, unless these Wall Street veterans are suddenly imbued with that sense of civic responsibility that Barack Obama mentioned in his inaugural address.

George Carlin is dead, but his words live on. Especially his big seven from his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" on the 1972 album Class Clown:

Courtesy of Justin R. Erenkrantz, here's a transcription of that complete routine:

Ralph Nader, the newest entrant in the presidential race, is sure to implode, but not before he wreaks some panic among Democrats. He's our own homegrown suicide bomber of politics.

Suicide bombers elsewhere are exploding, not imploding. Yesterday, on the road from Baghdad to Karbala, one of the schmucks killed a couple of dozen of pilgrims at a rest stop:

And in Pakistan, one of Nader's kissing-of-death cousins targeted a cop:

Nader, however, is the only suicide bomber who publicly announces his intentions:

Sounds as if Nader's the one who's feeling locked out, shut out, marginalized, and disrespected.

The latest episode of HBO's The Wire, the best piece of investigative entertainment ever seen on TV, is once again instructive. Detective Jimmy McNulty's "serial killer" — a fake murderer springing only from McNulty's imaginative scam to get more money for police work — warranted an FBI profile. And McNulty himself fits the profile — especially the part about the "killer" feeling superior to everyone else. Back to reality: For once, the New York Times put perspective in a political story — probably because Adam Nagourney didn't write it:

Worth it for whom? Nader's quixotic quests for the presidency are reminiscent of Harold Stassen's. Only no one's laughing, except for the Republicans. If McCain's people are smart, they'll start siphoning campaign funds to Nader. So far, the only campaign contributor to Nader in the past six months appears to be one Patricia Gilmartin of Homewood, Illinois, according to federal campaign records. And, schizophrenically, she also has given money to Barry Obama.

Nader came to fame with his auto exposé, Unsafe at Any Speed. But he just can't seem to take his pedal off the metal. Take it out of first gear, Ralph. Your whining is annoying.

The presidential contenders — a gaggle of self-styled New England patriots, at least temporarily — are hunkered down right now in New Hampshire waiting to see who's going to be voted off the continent.

At the last minute, trailing Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton swore that she is a "doer." Yeah, a doer in the headlights. Her eyes welled up with tears, so the stories say, and though it's more likely that they were crocodilian and that she was cynically playing the stereotypical-female card (or the press was), columnist Errol Louis of the New York Daily News says he thinks those tears were 100 percent saline:

Meanwhile, we sit back haplessly and see this tiny — beautiful but really tiny — state decide for the rest of the country who we're going to be stuck with to follow the disastrous Bush regime.

And isn't it fitting that New Hampshire, whose population is 1.1 percent black in a nation whose overall population is 12.8 percent black, may decide the fate of the most viable black presidential candidate ever?

This is democracy? It's like Pakistan, only colder. New Hampshire's state motto is particularly apt: "Live free or die." After the primary results are in, several of these candidates will probably have to exit, ending their free ride of matching campaign funds and potential Secret Service protection and future taxpayer-funded royal living.

As the wife of a former president, Clinton will continue to live high with free protection from the commoners, but today still may turn out to be a black moment for her.

There's nothing wrong with weeping — it's only human — but if she cries tonight, those tears will be believable.

The one piece of truthtelling yesterday came from, of all people, Roger Clemens. The pitcher injected at least a little honesty into his Monday press conference when, acting like a 'roid rage driver after a fender-bender, he angrily said, "I put my butt on the line and I worked my tail off . . ."

Yes, he did put his butt on the line so his trainer, Brian McNamee, could inject something into it.

We're still waiting for Clemens's first bout of crying.

Rehnquist is dead, but his spirit lives. The Supreme Court and Rove's man at the FEC pump life into "voter fraud" scheme.

A snapshot of current American electoral politics is one of the ugliest pictures of the year, now that the increasingly conservative Supreme Court has decided to hear a major voter-fraud/national photo ID case before next year's elections.

The GOP-engineered presidential-vote debacle in 2000 has developed into what may become a major scandal involving the use of photo IDs, which the GOP has been trying to engineer in time for next year.

"Voter fraud" — a purported invasion of polling places by illegitimate voters — is the battle cry of Republican officials hoping to stem turnout by likely Democratic voters in battleground states.

And "voter fraud" is right: The requirement that voters present photo IDs is their scheme, and Hans von Spakovsky is their standard-bearer at the Federal Election Commission. That uncomfortable sensation felt by small-d democrats is their cherished poll being shoved up a place where the sun don't shine.

Who said Karl Rove left the building? Coupled with the appointment of Michael Mukasey to oversee the Justice Department and its Civil Rights Division, the GOP is setting itself up well for '08, fighting a winnable war against U.S. voters while it fights an impossible war overseas. Rove's fingerprints are all over this, whether or not he's still using his White House keyboard.

Iraq has left the Republicans flaccid, but their "voter fraud" canard and accompanying strategy threaten to give the GOP yet another election.

Shades of Bill Rehnquist! Before he was chief justice of the U.S., Rehnquist personally blocked black people from voting in Phoenix in 1964, using "voter fraud" as his excuse. I wrote about that in September 2005 ("Rehnquist Death Gives Bush Chance to Deepen American Crisis"), recalling Dennis Roddy's riveting column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that itself recalled Rehnquist's totalitarian behavior in Arizona as a GOP operative.

Rehnquist died in September 2005, but that didn't help because John Roberts, who favors corporate citizens over human citizens, took his place. An event that may turn out to be equally vital to the GOP occurred three months later, when Bush made a recess appointment to the FEC of von Spakovsky, a former Republican county chairman in Georgia. Before his FEC appointment, von Spakovsky was the chief civil-rights violator in the Justice Department's civil-rights division, leading the move to suppress minority and poor voters.

Von Spakovsky is up for confirmation to another FEC term. And the Roberts Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will hear the issue involving national photo IDs and voting — just in time for next year's election. This is dangerous, because it will likely bollix up '08 voting in key states.

There's plenty to read on this topic. From Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo this past June:

Kiel refers to a 2004 piece by Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker whose headline says it all: "Poll Position: Is the Justice Department poised to stop voter fraud — or to keep voters from voting?"

See Lou Dubose's 2006 account of how von Spakovsky collaborated with Rove to scheme Tom Delay's crooked redistricting in Texas earlier this century. More to the current point, Dubose noted at the time:

Dahlia Lithwick's piece two days ago in Slate is also vital for understanding the back story on von Spakovsky.

Legal beagles can parse Bob Bauer's analysis yesterday of the politics swirling around the vote case the Supreme Court has now agreed to hear.

For a very recent story hinting at the bad smell emanating from the Justice Department, see "The Stooge," by David Martin of Kansas City's The Pitch.

As for following this issue, though, nothing beats wonk lawyer Rick Hasen's Election Law site, though Hasen is perhaps too hopeful that the high court will protect the rights of voters.

As I've pointed out before, in a September 2004 piece about dubious electronic-voting machines, Hasen is always a captivating and current legal-news live wire.

Those who can't live without the New York Times can learn some things from an April 12 story, "In 5-Year Effort, Scant Evidence of Voter Fraud," co-bylined by Ian Urbina, whose copy I used to have the pleasure of editing.

But you must keep clicking on the excellent McClatchy home page (formerly the Knight-Ridder D.C. Bureau), and definitely read Greg Gordon's story last April, "Administration pursued aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout." Gordon noted:

Next year those of you who can vote might want to vote early and vote often.

Still secret: Corruption in the White House.

Over at Secrecy News, the indefatigable Steven Aftergood has posted a heretofore secret study of Iraqi government corruption.

Even though the Nation's David Corn already wrote about the study, I can't say it would be much of a surprise anyway: The investigating agency, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, knows a lot about corruption.

Anyway, the report notes:

Sounds like the White House. U.S. congressmen and various public-interest groups got nowhere when they tried to probe Dick Cheney's "energy task force" early in the Bush regime.

And the White House has continually tried to call a halt to the excellent investigative work by Stuart Bowen on corruption in Iraq.

It took a British NGO, Christian Aid, to break the news a few years ago that Jerry Bremer, the Barney Fife of Baghdad, couldn't explain why $9 billion in Iraqi oil revenue was missing.

Besides that oil-for-slush scandal, we're still waiting to see those millions of White House e-mails the regime is withholding that relate to various scandals. Then there are the missing-weapons scandal and the various KBR scandals — you get the picture.

In any case, this new report on corruption inside Iraq's puppet government is still worth reading. It turns out that we really have planted a seed of our own form of democracy over there.

This may hurt.

A new GAO report stops the White House spin on Iraq in its tracks. Golly, why couldn't the Washington Post wait until the White House massages General David Petraeus's info into a suitable "progress report" to be released on 9/11?

Iraq is still unreasonably hot, and the White House is still blustery. I know, you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows, but getting your hands on a GAO report draft helps. Here's this morning's story by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks:

And how's that "surge" working for you?

The best news is that the number of whistleblowers in D.C. is increasing. That may slow the Bush regime's spin enough that we can see what's actually going on in Iraq. The story notes:

Get ready for a mid-August rain of propaganda.

Picking up Rove's pieces.

Now that Karl Rove is leaving, who's going to whisper instructions in George W. Bush's ear?

Rove's string-pulling of the puppet POTUS was never summed up better than in an episode revealed by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who resigned in early 2003 and dumped a truckload of notes on Ron Suskind, who produced the invaluable book The Price of Loyalty.

As I noted in July 2005, O'Neill recalled an instance in which Bush actually displayed compassion toward the middle class, at the expense of the wealthy, but was talked out of it by Rove.

A book-promotion conversation between Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and Suskind in early 2004 tells the tale. Here's the transcript, posted by the excellent Canadian site Centre for Research on Globalization:

Notice that Rove sealed O'Neill's fate and Dick Cheney fired O'Neill. Further evidence that Bush is no more than a front man. As if we didn't already know that.