The Securities and Exchange Commission said it would not punish Apple for backdating executive options, because the company had cooperated with its probe. But the SEC has not cleared Steve Jobs, the company's chief executive. And the fact remains that a key insider, Fred Anderson, has implicated the legendary Apple chief executive. Which must make it easier for the securities regulator to go after Jobs. And that's all that matters: Apple's visionary founder is one of the very few corporate leaders without whom a company is hard to imagine. The stock is yo-yoing around: plunging on news that Anderson, a former chief financial officer, had for the first time publicly blamed Jobs for Apple's sloppy compensation practices; and recovering on news the SEC wasn't going after the company itself. I'm still thinking it would be hard for the SEC to end its investigation by scapegoating a retired general counsel.

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