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In those wanderings, Seidman became a master of both political infighting and self-promotion. He made many friends in Congress, partly because he never turned down requests to testify. When Seidman came under White House fire for excessive independence last spring, one appreciative Republican Congressman, Jim Leach of Iowa, said, "Bill Seidman is the Jane Pauley of American government." Like Pauley, Seidman has been very visible on TV lately, which he calls "getting your case before the public." Is there perhaps also a bit of the ham in him? Maybe not, but how many other short, bald, aged accountants have appeared in a Robert Redford movie? (One of Seidman's six children is a film director and got him a bit part as a barroom customer in Ordinary People).
Seidman's political and promotional skills led Congress not only to put him in charge of the RTC as well as the FDIC in 1989 but also to insulate him from outside pressures. That helped a lot when Seidman and Treasury officials began feuding publicly about how best to clean up the S&L mess. At one point the Treasury floated a proposal that the bailout be financed by a fee on bank deposits. Seidman ridiculed the idea as "the reverse toaster theory -- instead of the bank giving you a toaster, you give one to them." The White House started letting it be known that Bush was "interested in getting new leadership" on the S&L problem. "It all would have worked out amicably if they had not decided to attempt to move me out through derogatory leaks," Seidman recalls. "I told them, 'Every time you do that, I'll stay another month.' " Another reason for the White House misgivings about Seidman: it was his decision whether to sue Neil Bush, the President's son, for his part in the $1 billion collapse of the Silverado Bank in Denver. The FDIC filed suit against Neil Bush and 11 former colleagues for $200 million last September.
Seidman, whose six-year appointment expires in October, actually does want to move on. It's just that he hates to leave in the middle of a continuing bank crisis. "It's painfully clear that I would have been smart to get out earlier," he says, "but I am not as smart as I should be, and now I am enmeshed in such a day-to-day battle that it's hard to find the right date to leave."
Looking beyond the S&L scandal, Seidman is fighting for reform of the whole banking system. He argues that antiquated regulations have prevented U.S. banks from remaining competitive (Seidman's deep belief in the competitive system led him to join with banker Steven Skancke last August in publishing a cheerleading book, Productivity: The American Advantage). If the government could simultaneously broaden what banks are allowed to do but restrict their use of insured deposits, he says in a Seidmanian flight of metaphor, "we would have created sort of a minor miracle and ridden off in two directions at once, successfully."