Someone had to be "sacrificed" for the "financial panic and bailout," said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. And "heave-ho," Bank of America’s Ken Lewis was the one to go. His "alleged offense"? According to the government, it was harming his shareholders by buying Merrill Lynch at an inflated price—even though the Treasury pressured him into it, to save the banking system. "His real, and ultimately fatal, mistake was to believe the feds."
Perhaps that’s part of it, said Daniel Gross in Slate, but the bigger issue is that the "self-made, homespun” Southern banker "wanted—no, needed—to make it big in New York." Under Lewis, BofA tried, and failed, to buy its way into the top tier of investment banking. He was about to give up when Merrill went on the auction block. So in the end, Lewis was just "another out-of-towner who had been pickpocketed near Times Square."
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