Sheila Bair was born and raised in Independence, Kansas, and, boy, do her adversaries know it. The golden thread running through Ms Bair's career is independence. She was the Republican who dared to run for a house seat while supporting women's rights on abortion, the commodity-futures regulator who tried to block the Enron-isation of the US energy market, and the financial regulator who spotted the sub-prime crisis coming. In all these battles she ended up on the losing side "“ coming second in that primary, getting outvoted by her fellow commodity commissioners and being roundly ignored on sub-prime by George Bush and Alan Greenspan. But her positions are usually motivated by a desire to serve the wider good rather than buy off some lobby group. As head of the Federal...