FEDERAL REGULATORS TAKE OVER INDYMAC, and David Bernstein says “I told you so.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that federal bank regulators are blaming Sen. Charles Schumer for starting a run on the bank: “The director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, John Reich, blamed IndyMac’s failure on comments made in late June by Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), who sent a letter to the regulator raising concerns about the bank’s solvency. In the following 11 days, spooked depositors withdrew a total of $1.3 billion. Mr. Reich said Sen. Schumer gave the bank a ‘heart attack.'” (Via Canticle for Leibowitz, which reports that no other Senator has made such a letter public.)

Problems with the bank aren’t Schumer’s fault, of course, but publicity-seeking is a well-known Schumer flaw, and subjects like this call for a degree of discretion that he seems not to have demonstrated.