Crowley Political Report

If you were too busy Sunday to read Sydney Freedberg's story about the failures of Gov. Charlie Crist, CFO Alex Sink and Attorney General Bill McCollum in their oversight of Florida's investments you missed an important investigation.

Freedberg, an excellent investigative reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, finds that the three failed to ask tough questions of Florida's money managers even as the state was losing hundreds of millions in the value of its portfolio.

When the losses became public, all three talked tough about taking action against Wall Street, but Freedberg reports:

...no bank was prosecuted, no lawsuit was filed and there was never a full accounting of a financial debacle that could cost Florida governments and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now the St. Petersburg Times has obtained e-mails and internal memos that document a story at odds with the one told by Crist, Sink and McCollum, the elected officials responsible for oversight of the state's money managers.

The securities Wall Street "dumped" on Florida? The records show the state was anything but an innocent dupe; it was an eager partner.

It is a complicated but important story that reveals Florida's money managers were taking unnecessary risks with the state's money and that Crist, Sink and McCollum were Florida's three blind mice.