Way back in the day, when the country had real depressions worthy of capital D’s, the Senate had decided it had enough of that crap and wanted to know what happened (this was before we had talking heads on CNBC to tell us what to think, financially speaking). So it did the natural thing and launched an inquisition, which everyone expected. Its chief weapons were fear, interrogation, and Ferdinand Pecora, whose dapper visage you see above.

Pecora was the investigation commission’s fourth chief counsel, and the one who actually got things done.  The first two were really bad at it and got fired, and the third quit after he couldn’t get subpoena power, which is a really important thing to have if you’re to do any serious investigatin’. His investigation took down National City Bank’s (now Citi) Charles Mitchell, a real OG bandit, and directly led to the passage of Glass-Steagall (rest in peace), the Federal Securities Act, and the creation of the SEC, which Pecora went on to chair. So he’s kind of a rock star. Well guess what! We’re rounding up another posse to do the same thing, so who knows what previous unknown might wind up on the cover of TIME magazine, or whatever the relevant weekly of record is anymore, because it sure isn’t TIME.

One name being bandied about is Fred Thompson, who will surely make the commission 100% more gruff but lovable. If nominated, Thompson is expected to hem and haw for months while support for his position on the commission grows, until he finally accepts six months after the investigation begins and only shows up to half of the meetings actually awake.

Whenever this thing finally gets staffed, it will have until December 2010 to conduct its investigation, which will likely consist solely of the following three words: Bandit did it.