It's hard to imagine that President Bush could have made a better choice for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission than Chris Cox, the former securities lawyer and market-oriented congressman from California

National Review, July 4, 2005

It's hard to imagine that President Bush could have made a better choice for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission than Chris Cox, the former securities lawyer and market-oriented congressman from California. Bush's first two choices for SEC chief were less inspired. In the post-Enron hysteria over accounting practices, Harvey Pitt faced enormous pressure to regulate corporate America to death.

He did not give in to that pressure-but he could not successfully resist it, either. He was unable to make an argument for market solutions to accounting problems, and was too compromised by his ties to the accounting industry to be credible even if he had. William Donaldson, Pitt's successor, bought himself better press by joining the regulators and forcing through a number of unnecessary rules that compromise efficiency and stifle competition. Cox can be expected not to repeat that mistake, and to defend his policies with intelligence and clarity.