Ascent of a Woman

By TIMOTHY EGAN
NYT

SEATTLE — Crawling along a ledge leading to the 13,775-foot summit of Grand Teton two months ago, Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, paused for an instant at the crux of the climb. The gap between her and the next solid footing was nearly half a vertical mile of thin Rocky Mountain air.

“The guide said there was no room for mistakes,” said Cantwell. “So I just never looked down.”

Having mastered a technical and demanding route up the central spire of the Teton range, Cantwell is back at sea level taking on a more elusive target — Wall Street. She has been after the lords of big finance for almost a decade, and is furious now that reforms intended to rein in the kind of car-bomb speculation that brought down the global economy have been seriously diluted. Wall Street has not changed its ways.

“People are really frustrated,” she said. “Where are the regulators? Why aren’t the banks lending? Where’s the money for small business? Why do we only bail out the people with power?”

(More here.)