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.
OR...
If a tree doesn't fall in the forest and Dan Rather reports that it did, then it obviously must have happened.
Stock options? You mean options in worthless Enron stock? I am afraid that this is just the typical m.o. of the giant global companies, reward dilegent, loyal workers with worthless stock options to keep them on board and convince the employees that the company is just one big family.
Sure, maybe Gramm's wife could have warned the public about the true financial picture of this company, but if she had done so, the end result would not have been any different, just sooner and maybe there was still a chance that Enron could recover.
No, the real problems at Enron had to do with it's global contracts and over expansion.
There was a Freeper that was doing some research on Enron last fall and I seem to recall that there was even a tie in to the communications company that worked for Al Gore, making those butterfly ballot calls to the Florida seniors.
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.
So they aren't connected but they are connected?
The press also has tried to tie campaign contributions to the GOP. The DNC also recieved money. The GOP returned the checks. The DNC donated the money to charities for the fired workers. Corporations play both sides of the coin.
And enough of the country bumpkin "how business gets done down in Texas" talk. NYC is corrupt and the whole world knows it.
To which I can only add, where IS the conservative media on this one? Little Tommy's wife at FAA is one of those who, while at the agency, allowed the Airlines to take more and more delays on implementing airline security. It is my hope that her reputation follows her, now that she is a "lobbyist" at that law firm in DC.
Awwww, I'm still hoping for chickens to come home to roost with any Dim.
Common Dreams is a leftist website with a decidedly leftist slant. Half of the articles today concern Enron, obviously hoping that its failure will stick to Bush.
It won't because Bush had nothing to do with Enron.
You just keep posting your drivel, and we'll keep reading it and ignoring it because that's what it deserves.
ROFLOL
"Your partisan rant masquerading as "hard news" re: President Bush and Enron today is proof once again that Bernard Goldberg was absolutely correct in writing his book, "Bias."
CBS will continue to lose market share, ratings, etc. as long as left wing elititists like you further destroy what's left of your so-called "journalistic credibility."
Bwhah-hah-hah-hah-hah!!!! I can just see those pink slips coming!!!! Hope you saved for a rainy day!!!!"
During the 1991-92 election cycle, Enron gave $28,525 to the Democratic party while (Ron) Brown served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Enron gave $42,000 to the Democratic party in the 1993-94 cycle."
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