Breaking: SEC Porn Story is Several Months Old

It was one of the biggest stories of last week, an irresistible metaphor-made-real. While Wall Street was having its way with the US economy, employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission were literally playing with themselves. What wasn’t widely reported, though, was that the story was several months old, and was revived by opponents of financial reform, who thought it would be an effective counter to news of the SEC’s fraud complaint against Goldman Sachs.

Gov’t employees doing anything that isn’t totally on the up-and-up is pretty standard fare; any political interest group ought to keep a story in their back pocket for just the right moment, no?