The story of Danny Pang, a West Coast money manager charged with conducting a massive Ponzi scheme, took a dramatic and mysterious turn with his death last weekend.

Robert Khuzami’s experience as a prosecutor of terrorists and white-collar criminals would seem to trump his political preferences.

With the emergence of a hero yesterday on Capitol Hill, casting of Bernie Madoff the Movie would seem to be complete.

Mary L. Schapiro, Barack Obama’s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, is being described as the right person to help restore the commission’s battered reputation.

Finding a scapegoat within his own party, Republican Sen. John McCain said Thursday that if he were president he would fire Christopher C. Cox, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

We wish we had said it first. The Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal made the observation Monday that investor Carl Icahn has adopted the Securities and Exchange Commission as his personal blog.

Annette Nazareth, the only Democratic commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, leaves office today.

She had announced her departure several months ago.

By law, the commission can have only three members of one party. The other Democratic commissioner, Roel Campos, departed in September to head Cooley Godward’s Washington office.

Does the Securities and Exchange Commission favor business over investors?

Absolutely not, says chairman Chairman Christopher Cox, a former free-market Republican congressman.