My conclusion is that Ken Lewis's performance at the House hearing was enough to keep federal regulators from demanding his job. (The new board may be another matter). Lewis went before sometimes skeptical members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and did his best to convince them that he wasn't browbeaten into going ahead with a deal that he though about canceling by invoking a MAC clause.

Forbes, however, says he couldn't quite convince the committee he wasn't lying. Lewis insisted that he was motivated instead by the consequences for the entire system should Merrill Lynch collapse. In testifying so, he has done a huge favor to Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, who took some heat for allegedly pressuring Lewis, suggesting he might lose his job if he didn't go ahead with the deal. 

For more:
- here's a Forbes article

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