Lost in the hubbub over the end of the GOP filibuster of bank reform and Goldman Sachs' role in the crisis that spawned the need for it is the news that Tim Geithner's spine has stiffened on what exactly to do. Or at least that's how I read this Times article.

I'm talking about Geithner's position on the so-called bank tax. Several months ago, he threw cold water on the idea of a special levy on banks, despite pressure for such a tax from his European counterparts.

I may be wrong about the apparent public indifference to the findings of the examiner's report on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy that I detected from the relative dearth of on-going press coverage less than a week after it was released.

As Jack Ciesielski, an investment advisor who publishes the Analyst's Accounting Observer, put it in an email to me yesterday, "This is really opaque stuff, similar in that regard, at least, to Enron. It's hard to make it catch fire with the general public. All they know is that someone on Wall Street was crooked, and there you go again. But I think even the public is getting numb."

You have to hand it to Senator Chris Dodd. For someone who has heavily depended on the generosity of the largest banks and investment firms for his fund-raising, he has proposed a pretty impressive bill for further regulating the financial firms....given the current environment in Washington, of course.

I am not confident it will prevent another AIG, Lehman or Bear Stearns. The current poisoned partisanship in Washington on both sides of the aisle wouldn't support that kind of onerous bill.

As Christoper Dodd prepares to ride off into the sunset, the central drama of his departure is how much punch he has left for financial regulatory reform.

The Connecticut senator, chairman of the Senate banking committee, is the chief author of the Senate's version of a bill that would impose greater oversight over and more transparency into the securities industry. His bill is the counterpart to Rep. Barney Frank's proposal in the House and would in effect expand how credit-default swaps and credit rating agencies are regulated, rejigger the configuration of Washington's bank regulators and create a consumer financial protection agency.