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.
In a perfect world, there wouldn't be. As you accurately note, this forum is quick to jump on liberals, especially ones that we despise. Very few are willing to stick up for Hillary or anyone like her because we hate her guts and hope that the accusations against her are true.
But an honest analysis of the situation would indicate that we know far less about Wendy Gramm's involvement in these matters than what we know about Hillary's involvement in anything she was accused of here.
I sincerely doubt whether even 1% of the people here, much less the entire country, could pick Wendy Gramm out of a photo lineup. She might legally qualify as a "public figure", but realistically she is virtually unknown. We know even less of what her actual involvement at Enron was.
That's why this forum treats the two women differently. It doesn't excuse some of the outrageous allegations that have been made here. To be fair, many of the claims are made by a small minority, but they don't receive the rebuttal that your claims have been, to be sure.
Certainly you can't expect to come to this forum and make similar statements about Senator Gramm's wife and expect a similar reaction to statements made here about Hillary. You're not that dumb. If you think it's hypocritical of us, I wouldn't argue from a technical point of view. We're not a forum whose primary mission is to explore liberal claims of conservative malfeasance in hopes that they are true.
As far as your implication that Loral got off lightly because of some Bush family attachment to China, you really need to rethink how much your political agenda is affecting your ability to be objective. You can separate the two if you really try.
Has history taught us nothing??? We need to wait for the facts. By hysterically condemning her with out all the facts and without her chance to tell her side,..is unjust.
I agree with Dog Gone. My boot will be in the frey with everyone elses if she is culpable.
If everyone starts to believe every little thing they hear.. this will only serve to create choas. Now won't that just make the people trying to KILL AMERICANS happier than pigs in poop!! Lets sit back and watch this. Lets not malign decent honest hard working peoples reputations. Be they Democrat or Republican. It doesn't serve anyone well.
Lets let calmer heads previal. I might even suggest we take the lead from our President and VP., Mary Matlin and the other able bodied staffers. What your going to see here is integrety, honestly and an Administration very willing to help in any way possible. They WON'T STONEWALL!!! Trust them... and give them a chance. We need to believe in them, unless PROVEN wrong. Then LOOK OUT!! (Which I would bet my right arm will never happen!!)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.