the resignation on Friday of James Conrad, director of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, is grossly inadequate penance. His total lack of oversight aggravated this crisis, and he simply gets to walk away? No matter what, he must be held accountable.

But the buck didn't stop at Mr. Conrad's desk. Governor Taft belatedly accepted full responsibility for the scandal at a press conference Friday. Maybe he should follow Mr. Conrad's lead and get out.

He also should apologize - first to every citizen in this state for his utterly inept stewardship of public funds and his abuse of public trust, and second, to this newspaper for his verbal assaults on our reporting.

Now that criminal charges are imminent, and prosecutors say they believe Mr. Noe may have converted a huge chunk of the public's investment to his personal use, we hear a much different tune from Mr. Noe's defenders.

Attorney General James Petro and Auditor Betty Montgomery kept their heads down for weeks, which provides an ironic twist to a quote by Ms. Montgomery in one of our Friday stories: "I hope my record will reflect after all these years that I am guilty of doing nothing."

Though she didn't mean it like it sounded, we couldn't have said it better ourselves. She and the attorney general did nothing until they were shamed into it. You can bet that the two of them have erased any trace of Tom Noe from their Palm Pilots; suddenly they are on the side of all that is good and righteous.