Michael Moore on Bush and Enron
I really enjoy Michael Moore's rants. .
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael Moore
[quote]Dear George,
When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up your pretzels
and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your biggest regret? Not
getting out more often and seeing the sights around Rock Creek Park? Never
once visiting the newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buying
your way to the White House with money from a company that committed the
biggest corporate swindle in American history? I got a feeling you didn't
miss much by not spending an entire Saturday afternoon assembling a
Swedish bookcase -- but you should have known that there was no way you
would ever finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay.
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most
popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from your
fellow Americans after September 11, and then you had to go and blow it.
You just couldn't stay away from your old cowpoke friend from Texas,
Kenneth Lay.
Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly around to all
the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so Kenny gave you
his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you arrived in each city
that the bird you flew in on was from a billionaire who was secretly
conspiring to give the bird to all his employees and investors? He flew
you around America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor you
touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that you
were "going to restore dignity to the White House, the people's house."
You said this standing in front of an Enron jet!
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to him as
"Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in April, 2000, to
fly back to Houston for the Astro's opening day at the new Enron Field --
just so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch. How
sentimental!
I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were awarded a set
of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in the White
House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level Energy Department
positions in your administration.
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency
that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for his
accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to
make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations
and would not be held
liable for any "funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this
forward-thinking?).
The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, Dick
Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big contracts
from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay and Dick formed
an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the
county's new "energy policy." This policy then went on to shut down every
light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And guess who made out
like bandits while "trading" the energy California was in desperate need
of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the
files about those special meetings with Lay!
The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who
ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media just
rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on your payroll
is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A former
advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of Alcoa,
whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the your
campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm representing Enron! Who
is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. Timothy White, the Secretary of the
Army? A former vice-chair of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal
Trade Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man
at the White House? He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock.
Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal judge in
Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the Republican Party, the
two Enron officials who now work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and
the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And
there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney
whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets. George, it
never stops!
My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and there's lots more.
Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil man. You don't
need any crap from people like me -- heck, you got mother-in-law problems!
Now, I have a very good relationship with my mother-in-law, but then, I
never told her to put $8,000 of her money into a company my administration
knew was going belly-up.
You say you didn't know? Your bag man -- Don Evans, the man who squeezed
all that money for you from Enron as your campaign finance chairman (and
is now collecting his reward as your Commerce Secretary) -- has admitted
that he got calls from Enron begging for help last year because they were
going under. Didn't he tell you this?
Then Paul O'Neill, your Treasury Secretary, admitted that Enron and Kenny
Boy called him, too, for some special favors to save Enron. Didn't he
mention this to you? They claim to have called your chief of staff, Andrew
Card, and he said he didn't bother to inform you. What does your
mother-in-law think about these boys her daughter's husband consorts with?
I love watching the O'Neill and Evans show. What a couple of cut-ups!
They're, like, all proud of themselves for "not doing Enron any favors."
Actually, I think it's more like they didn't do your MOTHER-IN-LAW any
favors. Enron got LOTS of favors. And why not? Kenny Boy has been your
number one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American
or Saudi has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron.
O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- ALL of them
gave Lay and Enron special favors from day one. The New York Times last
May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of the place (1600
Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as the "shadow advisor to the
president."
And what advice! Who was it that wanted you to deregulate the energy
industry further? Kenny Boy! Who was it that convinced you to explore the
sick idea of PRIVATIZING our water supply and then allow private
corporations to "trade" it in the future? Kenny Boy! Who was it that
wanted Social Security to be tied to the stock market? Yup, Kenny Boy!
(Imagine, if you will, what would have happened to our precious Social
Security funds had they been invested in Enron stocks as you, George,
suggested be done
during your campaign as yuppies everywhere clucked along in agreement over
that genius idea.)
O'Neill's and Evans's admission that they "did nothing" when Enron told
them of the company's shell game and impending collapse is reason enough
for you and yours to hit the Beltway and never return to that sacred trust
we call Our American Government. They are proud of "doing nothing?" By
doing nothing, millions of Americans have been swindled. Tens of thousands
have lost their jobs. Thousands more have lost their savings and their
retirement. Yet your cabinet secretaries gloat over what a "good job" you
and they did by "doing nothing."
Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire, and they
called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no you wouldn't help
them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911 and inform the police that
someone was going to burn down a house, do you think you would have
committed a crime?
Of course you would have! You had prior knowledge and then you knowingly
and purposefully HID this information from the authorities and the people
living in the house! You only admitted that you knew a house was going to
be torched when you were confronted by the police. Are you complicit? Yes!
Are you an accessory? Yes! Who would even think of going around boasting,
"Hey, look what a great guy I am -- a friend of mine told me he was going
to commit an act of arson, and then I decided NOT to tell ANYONE about
it!!
WHOO-HOO!!"
Enron and Kenny Boy bought your silence and the silence of your cabinet
members. You yourself didn't have to actually raid the 401(k) accounts of
those poor people in Houston (many of whom probably voted for you every
time your name was on a ballot). All you had to do was remain silent,
change the government regulations that let them get away with it, and
install their hand-picked cronies to sit on the "oversight" boards which
were supposed to be keeping an eye on them.
While doing all this, you told the American people that these rich friends
of yours were not getting any special breaks -- when, in fact, Enron had
already scammed their way out of paying NO taxes in four out of the last
five years. Your economic "stimulus" bill that you got the House to pass
after 9-11 had a section that would give Enron a gift of $250 million of
our tax money. You were pushing this bill in November and December, long
after your administration knew that Enron was raiding the vault and
screwing its workers and investors.
You and your Republican friends are quick to point out that Enron had
their claws into the Democrats as well. Yes, they did, and thank you for
making the case why we not only need an alternative to the current make-up
of the Democratic Party, we need private money removed from our electoral
process ASAP.
But, George, let's be real -- the Democrats only got a pittance from Enron
compared to the millions you and the Republicans received. Democrats just
don't have the killer instinct to do anything right, and they certainly
don't know much about making money the old-fashioned way, one off-shore
tax shelter at a time. I would expect nothing less from a Party that
couldn't even put their candidate in the White House after he had already
won the election.
The Democrats are like a Yugo -- you know it won't last long or work well,
but it will occasionally get the job done. Fat cats know they can buy the
Democrats at discount prices, and so they do. Anyone who tries to deflect
this scandal away from you, George, or away from the Republicans, or away
from the whole dirty way we elect our leaders, is someone who is
desperately trying to cling to what's left of a very crooked system that
has to go and go now.
The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal was revealed
-- and you denied that you even knew your good friend, Kenneth Lay. "Ken
who?" you said. Oh, he's just some businessman from Texas. "Heck, he
backed my opponent for governor, Ann Richards!" was your way of trying to
deflect the truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You knew that
he, in fact, endorsed YOU and gave you THREE times the money Ann Richards
ever saw
from him.
I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter outside the
walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the Garden of Gethsemane.
Three times he denied he knew Jesus, and three times the cock crowed. But
Peter, unlike you, felt shame and wept, and then ran away.
What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have told? What
shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a cover for your actions,
hoping that our sorrow for those lost souls and our fear of being killed
by terrorists would distract us from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up
to during those horrific weeks in September and October?
It was during those very days, while the rest of us were in shock and
sadness, that the executives at Enron were selling off their stock and
shifting assets to their 900 phony partnerships overseas. Did they notice
the remains of the dead being pulled from the rubble while they were
downloading their millions, or were their eyes glued only to the bottom
third of the TV screen as the stock ticker with the rigged Enron price
crawled across the images of firemen desperate, in tears, to find their
fallen brothers?
The country was behind you when you said you were fighting the evildoers
who did this. In fact, all the while, the real fight your friends at Enron
were conducting was the fight against the clock, to see how fast they
could transfer all the loot to their personal accounts and run away. Those
were the evildoers, George, and you knew it. And because you, by design or
negligence, allowed this to happen, it is time for you to resign. The cock
has crowed for the last time.
At the very least, your mother-in-law deserves better.
Yours,
Michael Moore<hr></blockquote>
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Samantha Joanne Ollendale ]</p>
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael Moore
[quote]Dear George,
When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up your pretzels
and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your biggest regret? Not
getting out more often and seeing the sights around Rock Creek Park? Never
once visiting the newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buying
your way to the White House with money from a company that committed the
biggest corporate swindle in American history? I got a feeling you didn't
miss much by not spending an entire Saturday afternoon assembling a
Swedish bookcase -- but you should have known that there was no way you
would ever finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay.
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most
popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from your
fellow Americans after September 11, and then you had to go and blow it.
You just couldn't stay away from your old cowpoke friend from Texas,
Kenneth Lay.
Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly around to all
the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so Kenny gave you
his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you arrived in each city
that the bird you flew in on was from a billionaire who was secretly
conspiring to give the bird to all his employees and investors? He flew
you around America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor you
touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that you
were "going to restore dignity to the White House, the people's house."
You said this standing in front of an Enron jet!
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to him as
"Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in April, 2000, to
fly back to Houston for the Astro's opening day at the new Enron Field --
just so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch. How
sentimental!
I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were awarded a set
of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in the White
House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level Energy Department
positions in your administration.
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency
that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for his
accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to
make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations
and would not be held
liable for any "funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this
forward-thinking?).
The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, Dick
Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big contracts
from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay and Dick formed
an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the
county's new "energy policy." This policy then went on to shut down every
light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And guess who made out
like bandits while "trading" the energy California was in desperate need
of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the
files about those special meetings with Lay!
The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who
ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media just
rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on your payroll
is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A former
advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of Alcoa,
whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the your
campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm representing Enron! Who
is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. Timothy White, the Secretary of the
Army? A former vice-chair of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal
Trade Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man
at the White House? He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock.
Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal judge in
Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the Republican Party, the
two Enron officials who now work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and
the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And
there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney
whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets. George, it
never stops!
My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and there's lots more.
Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil man. You don't
need any crap from people like me -- heck, you got mother-in-law problems!
Now, I have a very good relationship with my mother-in-law, but then, I
never told her to put $8,000 of her money into a company my administration
knew was going belly-up.
You say you didn't know? Your bag man -- Don Evans, the man who squeezed
all that money for you from Enron as your campaign finance chairman (and
is now collecting his reward as your Commerce Secretary) -- has admitted
that he got calls from Enron begging for help last year because they were
going under. Didn't he tell you this?
Then Paul O'Neill, your Treasury Secretary, admitted that Enron and Kenny
Boy called him, too, for some special favors to save Enron. Didn't he
mention this to you? They claim to have called your chief of staff, Andrew
Card, and he said he didn't bother to inform you. What does your
mother-in-law think about these boys her daughter's husband consorts with?
I love watching the O'Neill and Evans show. What a couple of cut-ups!
They're, like, all proud of themselves for "not doing Enron any favors."
Actually, I think it's more like they didn't do your MOTHER-IN-LAW any
favors. Enron got LOTS of favors. And why not? Kenny Boy has been your
number one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American
or Saudi has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron.
O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- ALL of them
gave Lay and Enron special favors from day one. The New York Times last
May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of the place (1600
Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as the "shadow advisor to the
president."
And what advice! Who was it that wanted you to deregulate the energy
industry further? Kenny Boy! Who was it that convinced you to explore the
sick idea of PRIVATIZING our water supply and then allow private
corporations to "trade" it in the future? Kenny Boy! Who was it that
wanted Social Security to be tied to the stock market? Yup, Kenny Boy!
(Imagine, if you will, what would have happened to our precious Social
Security funds had they been invested in Enron stocks as you, George,
suggested be done
during your campaign as yuppies everywhere clucked along in agreement over
that genius idea.)
O'Neill's and Evans's admission that they "did nothing" when Enron told
them of the company's shell game and impending collapse is reason enough
for you and yours to hit the Beltway and never return to that sacred trust
we call Our American Government. They are proud of "doing nothing?" By
doing nothing, millions of Americans have been swindled. Tens of thousands
have lost their jobs. Thousands more have lost their savings and their
retirement. Yet your cabinet secretaries gloat over what a "good job" you
and they did by "doing nothing."
Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire, and they
called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no you wouldn't help
them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911 and inform the police that
someone was going to burn down a house, do you think you would have
committed a crime?
Of course you would have! You had prior knowledge and then you knowingly
and purposefully HID this information from the authorities and the people
living in the house! You only admitted that you knew a house was going to
be torched when you were confronted by the police. Are you complicit? Yes!
Are you an accessory? Yes! Who would even think of going around boasting,
"Hey, look what a great guy I am -- a friend of mine told me he was going
to commit an act of arson, and then I decided NOT to tell ANYONE about
it!!
WHOO-HOO!!"
Enron and Kenny Boy bought your silence and the silence of your cabinet
members. You yourself didn't have to actually raid the 401(k) accounts of
those poor people in Houston (many of whom probably voted for you every
time your name was on a ballot). All you had to do was remain silent,
change the government regulations that let them get away with it, and
install their hand-picked cronies to sit on the "oversight" boards which
were supposed to be keeping an eye on them.
While doing all this, you told the American people that these rich friends
of yours were not getting any special breaks -- when, in fact, Enron had
already scammed their way out of paying NO taxes in four out of the last
five years. Your economic "stimulus" bill that you got the House to pass
after 9-11 had a section that would give Enron a gift of $250 million of
our tax money. You were pushing this bill in November and December, long
after your administration knew that Enron was raiding the vault and
screwing its workers and investors.
You and your Republican friends are quick to point out that Enron had
their claws into the Democrats as well. Yes, they did, and thank you for
making the case why we not only need an alternative to the current make-up
of the Democratic Party, we need private money removed from our electoral
process ASAP.
But, George, let's be real -- the Democrats only got a pittance from Enron
compared to the millions you and the Republicans received. Democrats just
don't have the killer instinct to do anything right, and they certainly
don't know much about making money the old-fashioned way, one off-shore
tax shelter at a time. I would expect nothing less from a Party that
couldn't even put their candidate in the White House after he had already
won the election.
The Democrats are like a Yugo -- you know it won't last long or work well,
but it will occasionally get the job done. Fat cats know they can buy the
Democrats at discount prices, and so they do. Anyone who tries to deflect
this scandal away from you, George, or away from the Republicans, or away
from the whole dirty way we elect our leaders, is someone who is
desperately trying to cling to what's left of a very crooked system that
has to go and go now.
The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal was revealed
-- and you denied that you even knew your good friend, Kenneth Lay. "Ken
who?" you said. Oh, he's just some businessman from Texas. "Heck, he
backed my opponent for governor, Ann Richards!" was your way of trying to
deflect the truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You knew that
he, in fact, endorsed YOU and gave you THREE times the money Ann Richards
ever saw
from him.
I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter outside the
walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the Garden of Gethsemane.
Three times he denied he knew Jesus, and three times the cock crowed. But
Peter, unlike you, felt shame and wept, and then ran away.
What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have told? What
shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a cover for your actions,
hoping that our sorrow for those lost souls and our fear of being killed
by terrorists would distract us from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up
to during those horrific weeks in September and October?
It was during those very days, while the rest of us were in shock and
sadness, that the executives at Enron were selling off their stock and
shifting assets to their 900 phony partnerships overseas. Did they notice
the remains of the dead being pulled from the rubble while they were
downloading their millions, or were their eyes glued only to the bottom
third of the TV screen as the stock ticker with the rigged Enron price
crawled across the images of firemen desperate, in tears, to find their
fallen brothers?
The country was behind you when you said you were fighting the evildoers
who did this. In fact, all the while, the real fight your friends at Enron
were conducting was the fight against the clock, to see how fast they
could transfer all the loot to their personal accounts and run away. Those
were the evildoers, George, and you knew it. And because you, by design or
negligence, allowed this to happen, it is time for you to resign. The cock
has crowed for the last time.
At the very least, your mother-in-law deserves better.
Yours,
Michael Moore<hr></blockquote>
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Samantha Joanne Ollendale ]</p>
Comments
<strong>I really enjoy Michael Moore's rants. .
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael Moore
[ 01-31-2002: Message edited by: Samantha Joanne Ollendale ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Please please please make the world a safer place.
It's sad. I used to like him a LOT.
though I must say that I find it funny that when the attention that he gives shifts you cease to find it funny.
I always thought that Michael Moore was the equivilent of Rick Mercer and Marry Walsh up in Canada (impressive, one man the equivilent of 2)
I got tired of all this shit when they were grilling Clinton about extra-marital affairs. No more patience for witchhunts.
Sorry. Michael Moore used to have a cause (downsize this! and Roger & Me were fantastic), now he's become YET ANOTHER Hollywood Conscience.
E.E. Cummings once observed that 'a politician is an as upon which everyone has sat except a man'.
Why are most of the population so weak and disinterested as to leave these people free rein? If we create our own destiny then we're not doing a very good job.
Toby
<strong>
Why are most of the population so weak and disinterested as to leave these people free rein?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Disinterested? What planet are you on? Do you have any idea how many people are investigating this? You can't turn on the news without hearing something about Enron. They even try to fit it into stories that have nothing to do with the issue. (I heard one about the "interesting" ways people are now using the word Enron.) There's a good chance somebody will go to jail over this. It's hard to see how fraud wasn't committed here. But Bush had nothing to do with that.
this little rant strives to make plain what will likely only be further obscured from here on out..
[ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: killboy ]</p>
So far there's is no public evidence of direct wrong-doings by the White House re. Enron. In making such a definitive statement, are you privy to everything that goes on in the White House? If there had been any solid evidence, it would have gotten shredded a long time back.
Bush may have had some campain help from his friend but that HARDLY indites him for being involved in a scandal.
Michael Moore is just a flamboyant inflamitory writer that obviously has a beef with the fact that algore ain't in the White House.
Get over it... it was a YEAR AGO!!!
Mac Guru
Then we hear that the White House is in trouble because the knew Enron was in trouble. What would Bush do with that information? Go on TeeVee and say "Enron is in trouble sell your stock"? That's insane and may just be illegal?
Please just dream up something that you can get Bush in trouble for? I doubt you can do it. You can't even tell anyone what you think someone did or did not know or do or anything at all and how that may be illegal or unethical or anything.
If you actually *read* my post, I stated:
[quote]So far there's is no public evidence of direct wrong-doings by the White House re. Enron<hr></blockquote>. Should I have suggested something like "if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck etc etc"?????
Maybe an independent special prosecutor should take this case, with a budget of >$60 million. If *they* can't dredge something up, then I will be satisfied that the White House is innocent. Having the Justice Dept. "investigate" this is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
*must* remember poster... special olympics... ARGH!
This is the problem with making promises to your self, you feel no true shame in breaking them.
Ok, one little comment wont hurt...
Read the letter, and trust me, M. Moore does his homework really, really well.
Yes, Roger&Me, Downsize thi, and The Big One were terrific.
This is for those of you who think Enrongate is not a political scandal, but purely about private business.
All this comes from articles I found on the web, mostly various reports from the New York Times, but also the Center for Public Integrity for campaign finance info, and other places. Apologies for the length, but I tried to put it all together:
1. Bush and his administration have unusually strong ties to Enron,
2. the Bush admin gave favorable treatment to Enron,
3. they knew of the imminent collapse of Enron but did nothing to prevent ongoing illegal actions, and
4. Bush and his people are lying about it now and stonewalling investigations.
---
1. Ties between Bush and Enron:
1. Enron was not just any Bush contributor, it was Bush's largest contributor. They gave Bush at least $750,000, not including other money Enron gave to the RNC and Congress.
2. They lent Bush the Enron corporate jet 14 times during the presidential campaign.
3. Yes, they gave money to Dems, too. $13,000 to Gore - less than 2% of what they've given to Bush. And as Scott_H points out, Enron even gave to Hillary - a grand total of $950.
4. Lay (Enron's chief) let Bush use the Enron box to go to Texas Ranger's games. The Houston Astros play in Enron Field, named that after a deal with Bush when he was governor of Texas.
5. Bush even had Lay sleep over at the White House. Not sure if it was the Lincoln bedroom, though.
6. Mark Racicot, Bush's point-man on the Florida post-election and now Bush's chair of the Republican Party, was a registered lobbyist for Enron. He has an arrangement where the RNC pays him $1 in salary for being RNC chair, but he gets his "real" salary from the lobbying firm, even though his RNC job is full time.
7. Ralph Reed, after resigning as director of the Christian Coalition, supported Bush for president in 2000. But he wasn't paid as an advisor to Bush, he was an over-$10,000/month consultant to Enron. It appears to be an under-the-table campaign contribution from Enron to Bush.
8. Just over a week ago, even after the scandal became public, a former Enron president hosted a fund raiser for Jeb Bush in Florida.
9. Arthur Andersen is the accounting firm that was supposedly keeping watch over Enron's books, but instead were shredding Enron documents. The Arthur Andersen exec who was in charge of the Enron account? He was a Bush "Pioneer," meaning he was in the top category of Bush campaign fund-raisers, raising and personally giving at least $100,000 to Bush. Arthur Andersen the company has given over $200,000 to Bush.
10. Fourteen top-tier Bush admin appointees were shareholders and/or recent employees of Enron. Did they all lose money like the workers and other investors in Enron, or did they profit like Enron's execs? We don't know, but we do know that at least some knew of the company's financial troubles in advance (see below).
---
2. Bush gave favorable treatment to Enron.
Bush defenders say that Enron went bankrupt, so that proves there was no quid-pro-quo between Bush and Enron. But does Enron's bankruptcy really prove the Bush admin didn't do anything for Enron? No, it could just mean that Enron was so incompetently run that even favorable treatment from the White House couldn't help them. A few examples:
1. Curtis Herbert, the chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, was criticized by Lay, and shortly afterward Bush replaced that chair with Lay's choice, Pat Wood from Texas. The FERC has primary oversight over Enron, an energy trading firm.
2. Lay recommended the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt. He came from a firm that represented Arthur Andersen.
3. During California's energy crisis, the Bush admin received a request from California for federal intervention. Enron, which had played a large role in California energy before and during the crisis, would have lost money, and opposed the plan. The day after Lay met with Cheney to form energy policy - the Bush admin refuses to release information about the meeting - Bush came out and opposed federal intervention. Pat Wood (see above) in particular was publicly strongly opposed to California's request.
4. Enron people met with Cheney's secret energy group at least six times to shape Bush's energy policy.
5. Enron - despite being one of the largest companies in the world, has paid zero income taxes for years because of tax sheltering - would have gotten a check of over $250,000,000 under Bush's economic stimulus plan. But the stimulus plan hasn't passed through Congress yet (and may never).
6. Bush personally lobbied Penn. governor Tom Ridge, who is now Bush's Terrorism Czar, to let Enron into Pennsylvania's energy business. Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition director who worked for both Enron and as a campaign advisor for Bush, also worked on the Pennsylvania contract.
7. The Clinton admin's crackdown on overseas tax havens, the same ones Enron used to hide under, was very publicly abandoned by the Bush admin right after they got into office.
8. Cheney personally talked to gov't officials in India about repaying money India owed Enron.
---
3. The Bush admin knew of the imminent collapse of Enron but did nothing to prevent ongoing illegal actions.
Law enforcement doesn't investigate crimes only after everyone else knows about them - they investigate after they themselves know about them.
The Bush admin has proudly said that Lay asked for a financial bailout, but was refused. And Lindsey, the former Enron employee and top economic advisor to Bush, wrote a study about Enron's financial troubles. So they knew of Enron's financial difficulties before the rest of us.
So why didn't they initiate an investigation at that time? And why didn't they do something about Enron execs' false public statements about their financial health? And why didn't they do something about Enron execs raiding pensions, preventing their employees from selling stock, and secretly selling their own stock?
Now, the Bush admin wants a criminal investigation of Enron. But if what Enron did was so bad, as they now say it was, how come they didn't do anything until after the rest of the country found out about it too?
---
4. Bush et al. are now lying about and covering up the scandal.
1. Ari Fleischer said "I'm not aware of anybody in the White House who discussed Enron's financial situation." We now know that Lay asked the White House for a financial bailout. The administration brags about that now, in order to prove that they refused to help them.
2. The Bush admin said they didn't know Enron was about to go under, but it's now known that Lawrence Lindsey, Bush's top economic advisor and yet another former Enron employee, wrote an internal administration study of Enron's financial difficulties a month before it collapsed.
3. Bush says Lay supported Richards, his opponent in 1994. But Lay himself says he supported Bush over Richards, and public records support that: he gave $150,000 to Bush vs. $12,000 to Richards during that election.
4. Bush said he didn't know Lay until 1994. But Lay says he was a personal friend of GW's before 1994.
5. Bush refuses to release details of Enron's energy-policy meetings. The General Accounting Office has now sued the Bush administration to make them release records, but they still refuse.
6. Bush has invoked executive privilege on other matters in order to avoid revealing information.
7. Attorney General Ashcroft had to recuse himself from investigating Enron because he received so much money from them (BTW, why didn't he stay out of the MS anti-trust suit for the same reason?). So he handed the investigation to Larry Thompson, a Deputy AG. The problem is, Thompson himself was a partner in Enron's law firm before joining the Bush admin. It seems like you can't go anywhere in the Bush administration without running into Enron. So why not have an independent investigator? The Bush admin refuses.
[ 02-01-2002: Message edited by: Scott H. ]</p>