White House: Bush has confidence in SEC chairman

The White House said Thursday afternoon that President Bush continues to have full confidence in Chris Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, following a statement by Republican presidential candidate John McCain that he would fire Cox in light of the Wall Street crisis. 

White House press secretary Dana Perino said in an e-mail that the president does have confidence in Cox, but Sen. McCain (Ariz.), campaigning in Iowa Thursday, said if he were president he would have fired the chairman because he said Cox, whom the GOP nominee did not mention by name, has “betrayed the people’s trust.”

{mosads}Senate Democratic leaders attacked McCain by criticizing the suggestion of firing the SEC chairman. Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) called McCain’s rhetoric irresponsible and little more than an attempt to distract voters from McCain’s strong history of supporting deregulation.

“Three of us served with Cox in the House,” Reid said. “This is McCain-style politics: Go after the first person you can to divert attention from your failures.”

Schumer noted that McCain has “been completely deregulatory” in his 26 years in the Senate.

“This is typical subterfuge — if anything, in fact he is probably to the right of Cox on deregulation,” Schumer said. “Instead of firing Cox, maybe Sen. McCain should say how his policies differ from President Bush on this issue. And if not, maybe he should ask that Bush be fired instead.”

The Democratic leaders didn’t exactly defend Cox, toeing a careful line that McCain’s call was simply irresponsible.

“I have differences with him,” Schumer said. “But at this time, calling for someone to be fired is sort of a very nice symbolic act that doesn’t do anything to change policy. And you don’t want to make the markets less confident by having the leading Republican call for people to be fired. He ought to be talking about the policy changes that the SEC is not doing.”

Cox was a House member from 1989 to 2005, representing California’s 48th district, based in Orange County.

He was confirmed unanimously by the Senate when Bush appointed him SEC chief in 2005.