Bush Will "F--- Whack This S---" for Enron, "Crude, But True"(CBS Rather Blathers Enron Bush Tie)

MRC ^ | Wednesday June 2, 2004 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

CBS on Tuesday night resurrected the Enron scandal and made sure to tie it to President Bush. Playing some audio tapes of conversations amongst low-level Enron sales staffers, CBS News reporter Vince Gonzales maintained that back in 2000 "they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices." Gonzales also claimed that some inarticulate vulgarity by an unidentified Enron staffer, about how Bush will "f------ whack this s---, man. He won't f------ play this price-cap bull----," was "crude, but true."

Anchor Dan Rather set up the CBS Evening News story which led the June 1 broadcast: "Good evening. We begin tonight with a CBS News exclusive. You are about to hear the shocking words of Enron employees as the company was boldly ripping off the state of California and consumers high and low, manipulating gas, oil and electricity markets. Market manipulation in this country and elsewhere is at the heart of criminal charges still pending against former Enron executives, the first of whom go on trial next week in Houston. CBS News investigative correspondent Vince Gonzales obtained the audiotapes the U.S. government had kept under wraps hoping, along with Enron, that you would never hear them."

Maybe government lawyers wanted to keep them private so they could be used in criminal proceedings. By Rather's logic, all prosecutors, who don't divulge to the media all the evidence they've gathered, are in collusion to hide valuable information from the public.

Gonzales began, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated."

Audio clip of Enron employee: "Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing."

Gonzales: "Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, on audiotapes obtained by CBS News, Enron's energy traders can be heard gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on and cash in on the western power crisis."

Audio clip of employee #1 [Text on screen, with ---- and parts of words bleeped, over video of electricity meter]: "He just f---- - California. He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

Audio clip of employee #2 in the apparently recorded phone call: "Will you rephrase that?"

Employee #1: "Okay, he, arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day."

Gonzales: "The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS News reported years ago. In secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants to shut down."

Audio clip of employee #3 [Text over picture of power plant]: "If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?"

Audio clip of employee #4: "Oh, it's not something you want to be just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way."

Employee #3: "Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down?"

Gonzales: "Officials with us in Snohomish public utility district near Seattle received the tapes from the Justice Department."

Eric Christensen, Snohomish County Public Utility District: "These tapes prove beyond a doubt that Enron was engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the rate payers of the entire West Coast."

Gonzales: "That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from Enron."

Audio clip of employee #5 [Over picture of power lines]: "They're f------ takin' all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

Audio clip of employee #6: "Yeah, grandma Millie, man."

Employee #5: "Yeah, now she wants her f------ money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her ass for f------ $250 a megawatt hour."

Gonzales: "And the tapes appear to link top Enron official Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay to schemes that fueled the crisis."

Audio clip of unidentified female "executive": "Government affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling."

Audio clip of employee #8: "Okay."

Same unidentified female executive: "Do you know when you started over-scheduling load and making buckets of money on that?"

Gonzales, over video of balloons dropping on George and Laura Bush at the 2000 Republican convention: "Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win."

Audio clip of employee #9: "It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay be Secretary of Energy."

Gonzales: "That didn't happen. But they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices."

Employee #9, with "Enron Phone Recordings, CBS News Exclusive" on screen and text of audio over a shot of Bush on a dais: "When this election comes, Bush'll f------ whack this s---, man. He won't f------ play this price-cap bull----."

Gonzales: "Crude, but true."

George W. Bush in a speech, May 29, 2001: "We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse. And that's why I oppose price caps."

Gonzales concluded: "Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's attorneys argued they merely prove, quote, 'that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnicle Bill the sailor.' Vince Gonzales, CBS News, Los Angeles."

For the online version of this story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml

[ntnychik]

More breathless coverage of the epithet-filled Enron tapes tonight. Sure seemed like Dan wanted you to associate this "scandal" with Pres. Bush.

Tonight's lead-in was a Breathless Dan "exclusive" that Pres. Bush has obtained a private attorney in the case of the public outing of the not-so-secret agent Ms. Pflame, enabling them to dredge up that whole story again.

I watched all the alphabets tonight to see how they covered the President's fine Air Force Academy speech. NBC was the only coverage briefly using the President's own words. PBS left the event out entirely. The other two had scant one-liner coverage, spinning the speech as equating Iraq with WWII. NBC had comprehensive coverage of the launching of "Fahrenheit 9/11".

Tonight's far more important topics included Chalabi, air national guard recruitment, military "stop loss" policy, old Gen. Skarpinski shoplifting story, teen antidepressant use, and the South Dakota "pivotal election" of someone who will serve for five months. PBS added earthquake prediction, and analysis of whose campaign ads are more believable (guess).

No cable here. If it weren't for FR, I might have been tempted to believe the "news" was really news.

[Dog Gone]

I liked that article you linked.

There's absolutely no way that California avoids more blackouts this decade. Demand for electricity continues to grow as the population increases, more homes are being built, and the economy kicks into high gear again.

It took the Perfect Storm of bad legislation, high natural gas prices, Enron, and a drought in the Pacific Northwest to create the last crisis. It won't require that much the next time. Demand is up several thousand megawatts since the last crisis, and new plants haven't been built to match it.

There's a drought in the Pacific Northwest again this year.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Nice letter! I Love It!

[lonestar]

If I remember correctly, the biggest trouble with Enron was the fake companies the big-wigs were creating on paper and doctoring the books.

[McGavin999]

I think they just saw a bunch of suckers. California DIDN'T deregulate, they only deregulated halfway. That's what cause the problem. Arizona deregulated all the way and we all saved a bunch of money. Of course, we didn't have an idiot like Grey Davis doing the negotiating.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Um, Great, dero. This is not weird at all. I see impartiality and fairness in this JD. Some of the people currently griping about this would be the LOUDEST ones bitching if Ashcroft hadn't recused himself.

I am highly amused, but only for a moment, when Bush-bashers try to indict the officials of this administration for doing the right thing.

His JD is still the one doing the investigating...Ashcroft isn't involved in the day-to-day...not necessarily because he is being coerced by the law, but because he wants to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Unlike Democrat Party Operatives of all stripes: who revel in such appearances.

My statements in the letter to See BS "News" are accurate and stand without need for change or amendment.

[SuziQ]

This will get as far as the last attempt to discredit Bush, and that went NOWHERE!!

[Koblenz]

Sounds like silly trader speak to me. I imagine if you went to any trading floor in NYC, you could get people cheering the fact that such and so company had lower sales or higher sales, or that a fire or transport strike or something was making the price of some commodity higher.

What's the smoking gun here? That traders wanted the prices to go up or down?

[mewzilla]

Gee, I wonder how many stories CBS has done on Oil For Food. If they care about big time graft, corruption, screwed American taxpayers, and brutalized Iraqis....Oil For Food has it all.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Index

[gitmo]

The attack at Bush will be for not admitting the markets were manipulated and bailing out California. Bush allowed the fiscal situation in California to deteriorate for partisan gain.

The fiscal disaster and the energy crisis in California were easily predictable. The policies of the state made it almost inevitable. Bush shouldn't be bailing states out from themselves.

[Joe Hadenuf]

For cripes sakes, I was just reading you're very interesting posts and found your account was just eliminated?

WTF?

[sheik yerbouty]

It should be Hillary's panties, the ones that, unwashed, lie beneath "old crusty"!

[Joe Hadenuf]

And yet there have been absolutely no blackouts since the prices were capped. Weird, huh?

Yeah, weird.....

It's almost like the whole "power shortage" line was concocetd by a buch of con artists who were joking around in private about sticking it to grandma.

Yeah, just joking around.

Hey Dog, know why this guys account was just banned? He seemed pretty legitimate to me.

[IamConservative]

I "rather" feel they made the point that Bush would have nothing to do with the price fixing that went on previously.

Seems like MRC may have read between lines that weren't there..??.. Perhaps I am an optimist. Maybe you get "Bush" and "Enron" together in the same sentence enough it rubs off.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Thought you may be interested in this Ernie....