Long ago, I wrote a fairly favorable article (for a conservative magazine, no less) about Andrew Cuomo, and I continue to think he has some merit as a public official. But contrary to John McCain, I see no basis whatsoever for making him the SEC chief. As Robert A. George points out, Cuomo plausibly helped pave the way for the mortgage crisis during his time at HUD.
I can appreciate the lure of anti-Wall Street populism. Financial institutions bear enormous blame for what's happened, as does government, as do myriad individual borrowers. But bullying banks is not an all-purpose answer to a crisis that will require a great deal of technical expertise (which, incidentally, Cuomo doesn't have). And McCain's fulminations make him sound as clueless as Theodore Roosevelt did during the Panic of 1907 when T.R. exulted that he had those Wall Street types "on the run."
UPDATE 11:40AM: This is better: "McCain 'Deeply Uncomfortable' with Lack of Bailout Oversight."
