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Ever been laid off? Sorry to hear it. But look on the bright side. Unless you're SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, you've never had high-ranking congresspeople ask the president to pink-slip you.

You might recall the recent fuss over the search for the head of a new accounting oversight board. The New York Times reported that pension chief John Biggs had the job. Pitt said no offer had been made and stopped just short of saying the Times made it up. Later, everyone reported that Pitt stopped supporting Biggs under pressure from Republicans and business interests. With an Oct. 28 deadline for filling the slot fast approaching, Thursday's Times made it sound like SEC officials were looking at an increasingly random and desperate short list, including 78-year-old William Webster, former FBI and CIA director. At least he's familiar with criminals.

In response to the Biggs mess, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle (D, S.D.) and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D, Mo.) wrote the president a nastygram demanding Pitt be fired. It looks like Pitt only dropped the reform-minded Biggs because the accounting industry told him to, they said, and that's just the latest in a long line of industry-coddling deeds. White House spokesman Ari Fleisher replied that the Dems' attack was "an old, tired cry" (what, charges of cronyism have an expiration date?) and "a political charge that has no merit in substance" (better -- Democrats are definitely trying to draw attention to corporate crime and the economy and away from Iraq in this election season).

A Harvey Pitt fan club would have few journalists as members, but the New York Times and Washington Post hung out more of Pitt's dirty laundry than anyone. "As a lawyer in private practice, Pitt represented the big accounting firms and major investment banks," said the Post, and once "promised to make the SEC a 'kinder, gentler' place for accountants and other groups the agency regulates." Not enough? He said some of President Bush's corporate reform legislation was unnecessary, he held private meetings with executives of former clients now under investigation, and asked Congress to make his position a Cabinet post "outranking such officials as the director of central intelligence, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and all the civilian heads of the various branches of the armed services," said the New York Times. The BBC summed this all up as "a series of embarrassments."

One of the few outlets not to give Pitt an outright spanking, the Wall Street Journal, led with the White House's continued support for him. That's not the impression one gets reading the New York Daily News, whose anonymous (of course) administration sources sang loud and clear. "He sure is making enough mistakes to leave himself awfully exposed out there," said one source, while another called him "a competent guy who's not much of a regulator, but whose biggest problem is he's just politically tone deaf." Well, competent's good, right? Sorry, Harvey, that's as good as it gets this week. - Jen Muehlbauer

Political Brawl Over S.E.C. Chairman
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/business/10PITT.html

Daschle, Gephardt Ask Bush to Remove Pitt
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3442-2002Oct9.html

Democrats Blast Pitt, Demanding Resignation
http://www.nypost.com/business/59362.htm

Dems Pressure Prez to Send Pitt Packing
http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/25712p-24314c.html

White House Supports Pitt Amid Calls for Resignation
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1034180980412478196,00.html
(Paid subscription required.)

Democrats Call For Pitt's Head
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2315343.stm

New York had a busy Wednesday. With the plunging stock market and the made-for-tabloid brouhaha over Mayor Bloomberg's invitation to two "Sopranos" cast members to participate in the city's Columbus Day parade, is it any wonder that the most intriguing reporting on the latest twist on NY-based ImClone came from further south?

It's not that Gotham media didn't cover the latest congressional documents on ImClone. After all, to ensure a wider fan base for today's hearing on ImClone, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had given the media an early look at details it hoped no reporter could pass up: Stock sales by ImClone's execs, directors, and other insiders topped $70 million in early December, ahead of the company's announcement that the FDA had rejected its application for anti-cancer drug Erbitux. It even had a pithy comment ready. "If all these people really believed Erbitux was the next miracle cancer drug, why did they dump their stock so quickly instead of buying more?" panel spokesman Ken Johnson was widely quoted as saying.

But the New York Times was unimpressed, filing a dozen grafs and noting that many of the sales had been reported previously. For reasons that it didn't explain, the New York Post pegged the stock sales' value at a much heftier $244 million. (USA Today's account did the math, explaining that the approximate difference is the stock sale by ImClone founders Harlan and Samuel Waksal.) Newsday skipped the insider-selling angle altogether, wondering instead why ImClone has gone so long without addressing investor concerns.

The most interesting tidbits, however, emerged from the Washington Post. Among the damning emails the committee hopes will show wrongdoing, the Post reported, was one that assistant VP Thomas Gallagher had written to himself. To himself? According to the Post, the thorough Gallagher wrote regarding his sale of 20,000 shares that an ImClone lawyer had informed him that "select members of Senior Management have been aware that the FDA may not accept" the Erbitux application. We suspect Gallagher's Thursday to-do list includes the following: "Note to self: No more notes to self." As if that doesn't give the House panel enough grist for today's probe, the Post said another subject likely to arise is why, several days after the SEC left a message for him, ImClone CEO Harlan Waksal ordered two paper shredders.

If only ImClone's elite circle could use on the House panel the advice that Mayor Bloomberg offered to Italian-Americans who resent the inclusion of Mob stereotypes in their annual parade: "If you are offended," the Daily News quoted His Honor as saying, "don't wave back when they wave at you." - Deborah Asbrand

Negative News From Some Blue Chips Takes Heavy Toll
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/business/10STOX.html

Mayor Whacks Back
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/25857p-24435c.html

Panel Lists More Stock Sales at ImClone Before Its Shares Fell
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/business/10IMCL.html

ImClone Insiders Cashed Out $244m
http://www.nypost.com/business/59364.htm

ImClone Exec To Break Long Silence
http://www.newsday.com/business/printedition/ny-bzimcl102959874oct10,0,6526097.story

ImClone Executives' Stock Sales Scrutinized
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3821-2002Oct9.html

Others Sold ImClone Stock Before FDA Decision
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/drugs/2002-10-09-imclone-insiders_x.htm

Goodbye to a Friend
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,613757,00.asp

New Execs at Gemstar Face a Big Challenge
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gemstar10oct10,0,3636607.story

Yahoo again turns profit
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/4249461.htm

Justices Hear Arguments in Challenge to Copyrights
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/business/10BIZC.html

2 Americans To Share Nobel Prize In Economics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3466-2002Oct9.html

Bush is accused of 'using Enron ploys'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5-442115,00.html

Global Slowdown Persists, Says UN
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2315357.stm

'Big Ass' Mistakes
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1034233460.php

Copyedited by Jim Duffy (jimduffy86@yahoo.com).

Advertising: Erik Vanderkolk (erikvanderkolk@yahoo.com).

Editor and publisher: Jimmy Guterman (guterman@vineyard.com).

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Copyright 2002 Media Unspun, Inc., and The Vineyard Group, Inc.
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