[thucydides]

Citibank held obligations of Enron that would plunge in value when the rating agencies downgraded Enron's credit. Rubin sought secretly to have the government lean on the agencies not to tell the public their honest evaluation of the credit. Many investors rely on these agency ratings in deciding whether to invest. Rubin was seeking to hold up the value of the Enron obligations until Citibank could dump them on an unsuspecting public - unsuspecting because Rubin would have prevented or delayed a true credit evaluation. Now for all the democrats' hypocritical whining about republicans and business, no republican official, not Bush or Cheney, did anything improper. Rubin did something very reprehensible. He sought to corrupt treasury officials and the rating agencies and thereby perpetrate a fraud on the public. Needless to say, Joe Lieberman sees little need to look into real wrongdoing on the part of a democrat.

[Fracas]

The Dems already have an answer for this. Jim Cramer has been giving the party line: It was Rubin's duty and responsibility to look after both his client (Citibank) and investors (us) to assure that the 'subjective' evaluation of the credit did not cause undue strain on the market.

As far as the 'invitation'? Rose, you're right about what the Senate should do, but there is no way they will suggest, order, compel, subpoena or demand that Rubin appear. Larry's right (post 9)...IF Rubin ever does testify, it will be one of the longest tributes in the history of the Senate.