Dick Bove, the bank analyst the media can't do without, has put out a provocative report in which he takes aim at Sheila Bair, the head of the FDIC. "Ms. Bair took her position in July 2006, which was more than two years before the September 2008 crisis. I had written in 2005 that the powder keg was going to blow. But the FDIC failed to live up to its requirements," he told Fortune.

"Ms. Bair wrote that banks should not have put so much money into property loans but should have spent it elsewhere. Well, the FDIC has the power to force the banks to do that," he noted. "It's not as if the FDIC was sitting on the outside and couldn't go into a bank and tell them to reduce exposures. So she is complaining that the banks were doing something that she had the power to stop. That's hypocritical, and it's just not right."

Bove thinks the leadership of the FDIC needs to be "turned over." Those are strong words, and it's rare to see an analyst go after a government official like that.

It does generate headlines, however, and some analysts are paid to keep their profiles high. We assume that Rochdale Securities is okay with their analyst being so aggressive on this issue. We'll have to see how Bair responds. She may not take the bait. But someone might place a call to the firm.

For more:
- here's the Fortune interview

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