Posted on 01/10/2002 7:00:04 AM PST by brbethke
Enron is not Bush's Whitewater Commentary: It will be worse
By David Callaway, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 12:10 AM ET Jan. 10, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - The Enron Corp. debacle won't be President Bush's Whitewater. It will be much worse.
Unlike the financial sideshow over a twenty-year-old failed land deal that dogged the Clinton administration, the collapse of the nation's largest energy trader into the nation's largest bankruptcy last month is set to go straight to the heart of exposing what is wrong with the way the Bush administration is conducting itself these days.
Once a buyer for Enron's (ENE: news, chart, profile) energy-trading business is announced Thursday in New York, this story is going to shift in dramatic fashion to Washington D.C., where there are already eight separate congressional probes into the collapse, one Justice Department investigation, and scores of unanswered questions. Many of them concern the White House.
Don't expect to see either Bush or Vice President Cheney directly linked to the financial shenanigans that brought Enron down. They won't be. This is not about finding a smoking gun, as much as some Democrats might wish it were.
What it is about, and what the public will get to hear and read about in wrenching detail over the coming months, is how business gets done down in Texas. How a small group of business leaders exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to their benefit.
It will explain why Bush has locked up presidential records, locked out any voices opposed to his pro-business agenda and rammed through an expensive economic plan that wiped out the budget surplus but to date hasn't had any positive effect on the economy.
It will explain what influence Enron Chief Executive Ken Lay and his advisers had with Cheney and his energy taskforce when they met six times last year while the Vice President was putting together the administration's energy policy.
And it will explain why Bush is now thinking about acting on a proposal from that very taskforce that seeks to roll back a key provision of the Clean Air Act that helps keep factory pollution down by requiring new controls when old plants are upgraded.
A history of seeking favor
Business leaders have always sought favors from politicians. That's nothing new. But in the case of Enron and Lay, a night in the Lincoln Bedroom was never going to be enough.
Enron cultivated Bush from the time he first decided to run for governor of Texas, with executives donating a total of $623,000 to his two gubernatorial campaigns and presidential campaign, according to The Center for Public Integrity.
The company played a major role in Bush's decision to deregulate the Texas energy markets in 1999. It played a major role in Cheney's energy taskforce last year, meeting with the Vice President's staff right up until a week before it stunned Wall Street in October by slashing its shareholder equity by $1.2 billion to cover losses in its off-balance sheet partnerships.
And Lay, who donated $100,000 to the Bush Inaugural, remains mired in a controversy about whether a curious phone conversation he had with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission head Curtis Hebert last May had anything to do with Hebert's replacement by Bush last summer with the head of the Texas Public Utility Commission.
This is just the beginning of what is going to come out once investigators do a little more digging, and once Lay and his minions are required to testify before Congress. Expect a steady diet of revelations about the extent of the energy giant's influence, at state, national and even international levels.
Enron won't bring down Bush. He remains enormously popular for his handling of the war and the rebuilding of the country's psyche after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But it will be a major thorn in his side through the rest of this presidential term, and may even play a role in the next election, depending on what comes out.
Enron the company will soon be gone. But Enron, the symbol of how big business and big politics conspire to sometimes fix the game, is just starting to dawn on the national conscious.
It's an ugly story. One that explains a lot about what's going on in our nation's capital right now. And it's only just beginning.
David Callaway is executive editor of CBS.MarketWatch.com.
Because I ask you to get off your lazy ass and post your evidence (and, no, I'm not going to accept your link unless you learn how to do it properly), I'm intellectually dishonest?
You grouchy old fart. I'd punch you in the nose if I weren't afraid you'd soil your Depends!
Do you think it odd that none of the Democrats on the Banking Committee seemed to have a problem with Gramm's wife on Enron's board?
The special prosecutor law expired and the Clinton administration, the media and the Democrats in congress did all they could to see that it was not reinstated. There are no more special prosecutors.
The simple fact is for a scandal to influence voters , it has to effect them directly. Thus the clinton scandal of screwing Monica's mouth in the oval office did not bother people because it was not their mouth and not their daughter.
Tons of things can happen and the public does not care as long as it does not effect them directly. You can't even hurt a policitian by saying his economic plan did not work. The Republicans tried that all through the depression years. The Republicans back then were as stupid as the Democrats are today. Franklin Roosevelt tried all sorts of leftist economic schemes. None of them worked. The Republicans were sure that the public would blame FDR for the failure. They did not do so. The Public saw that Roosevelt was trying to fix the economy. The Repbulicans of the era pointed out every day why Roosevelts stuff was not working very well. But the Republicans like Daschle the Democrat only got pubicity for tearing into Roosevelts failure. They did not make a big deal of how they thought the problem should be solved. Back then it only FDR trying to fix the economy. Today the public thinks only Dubya is trying to fix the economy. When the economy is sick, the public always goes with the side proposing a treatment. They reject the side that does not propose a treatment. It is the same with people. When they are sick they will go with the doctor that proposes treatment of the illness, rather than a doctor that offers no treatment. Tearing into the other doctors treatment plans with out a plan of his own, makes the patients mad at the doctor that will not prescribe.
The Public stayed with Roosevelt and the Democrats becuase he was at least trying to do something about the economy, and the Republicans of the 1930s only stood in his way.
That is the same stupid tactic that Daschle and the media are following today. Bush is seen as they guy trying to fix things. Democrats are seen as doing nothing to fix things. Democrats are doing a lot to attack Bush and his plans. That is very counter productive.Clinton was smarter than all of today's Democrats put together.
It works like this. Imaging you are dying of cancer. One doctor says here are some pills I think they have a shot at curing your cancer. The other doctor says, don't take that medicine it will not work. It is bad medicine. Don't take it, it is a rip off. If the cancer patient thinks there is one chance in 10,000 the medicine will work, he or she will take it..as directed. The same goes for voters at the polls.
Daschle does not have a clue.
From the Article.....
Plaintiffs want stock sale proceeds from Oct. 1998 through last November [2001] frozen so their allegations can be investigated further. They also want to prevent any defendants from dissipating or concealing those profits.
Over that time span, [Oct. 1998 to Nov. 2001] Lay sold the most among the defendants, at 1.8 million shares for $101 million. Gramm sold the fewest -- 10,256 shares for $276,912.
Those stock sales could be for from stock acquired from board meetings but not necessarily did it all occur within 2 yrs of going on the Board as you say.
Now your frozen asset thing about to happen..... from the article.....
HOUSTON (AP) -- A federal judge says she has the authority to freeze proceeds of more than $1 billion allegedly gained by top Enron Corp. (NYSE:ENE - news) officials who sold millions of shares before the energy giant collapsed.
But U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston also said in a ruling issued Wednesday that lawyers for Amalgamated Bank and other plaintiffs need to present a stronger argument to convince her to freeze those proceeds.
Oh, and Ronald Reagan isn't a conservative huh.....
And this is in keeping with forum guidlines how?
If the White House were involved, they didn't do very well trying to save Enron. Was there an attempted baillout? If so, I missed it. And, of course the White House would consult with the oil industry when there was an energy crisis. Enron is was part of that.
The collapse of oil and gas prices over the past year may have played a large part. Futures trading is not for the faint-hearted.
You are truly one of the ugliest posters ever to appear here, and I have a feeling your stay may not be long. I certainly hope it isn't.
But I can't help but laugh at you. You assert that I am biased and probably engaged in criminal activity merely because I have years of experience in these matters.
You, on the other hand, without any experience in these matters, are on a jihad against the wife of a Republican Senator and have already concluded that she should be in prison. Meanwhile, you have repeatedly and unjustifiably insulted just about everyone on this thread. And you would have us believe that you are an unbiased conservative?? LOLOL.
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