Amid all the scoundrels, fakers, boosters, suckers, dummies and victims tangled up in the Enron collapse, a few heroes have emerged. They saw it coming a long time ago and said so.

A breezy columnist for the New York Daily News wrote a year ago that Enron was “cruisin’ for a bruisin.” Peter Siris, who also is a professional investor and former Wall Street analyst, was interviewed by Paul Solman last week on Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour. He explained why most stock analysts, auditors, boards of directors and even most business reporters hesitate to blow the whistle: “It only makes enemies.” Analysts who make “sell” recommendations don’t get their phone calls answered. Mr. Siris has been on the receiving end. When he was an analyst and denounced a particular stock as a house of cards that was going to fall apart, he said, “The company did fall apart. It was a house of cards, and they never did business with me again.”

At Fortune magazine, Bethany McLean wrote last March, in an article titled, “Is Enron Overpriced,” that the company’s secrecy and growing debt and bullish expectations were worrying some Wall Street bankers. She warned, “Enron isn’t leaving itself a lot of room for normal wobbles and glitches that happen in any developing business.” She stayed on top of the story after the collapse. With articles titled “Ken, Lay Your Cards on the Table” in October and “Monster Mess” in the current issue. She notes that skeptics eventually made fortunes shorting the stock and asks, “Why didn’t anyone else care? Perhaps when everyone – money managers, analysts, banks, management – benefits from a soaring stock, no one has any incentive to ask disturbing questions.”

Still another hero, an analyst for a small Houston investment firm, was quoted last June by U.S. News & World Report as saying about Enron: “They’re not very forthcoming about how they make their money … I don’t know an analyst worth his salt who can seriously analyze Enron.” Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay sent Mr. Olson’s boss, Don Sanders, a handwritten note: “Don – John Olson has been wrong about Enron for over 10 years and is still wrong.” Mr. Olson, who now says Enron can recover, keeps that note framed on his office wall.

With blood in the water and an industry suddenly alert to signs of trouble, any other companies that have been practicing “aggressive accounting,” padding their profits and hiding their debts are at risk from analysts and business writers who now see the merit of spotting flaws and speaking out.