What shall we make of the surprise pronouncement in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address that a belated investigation has been launched into the role of fraud in the financial crisis?
This much is clear: Despite rampant illegalities, bank fraud and countless cases of perjury, the response to date — at the federal level and from most, but not all, states — has been underwhelming, cowardly even.
A few principled holdouts — the attorneys general of Delaware, New York, Nevada and California — refuse to rubber-stamp a pre-investigation settlement with banks, but that's all.