Posted on 01/14/2002 6:38:00 AM PST by Lucky2
Sunday, Jan. 13, 2002 10:25 a.m. EST Enron 'Scandal' Should Prompt Indictments - for the Clintons No one can say President Bush hasn't tried. As part of his campaign pledge to move the country beyond eight years of partisan squabbling over Clinton-era corruption, he never mentioned Whitewater or Monicagate or any other of the dozen or so gates that metastasized during the 1990s. br pAfter he was elected, Bush gave his silent approval when, the day before he took office, independent counsel Robert Ray announced he wouldn't prosecute President Clinton for blatant and repeated instances of perjury before a federal grand jury and a federal judge.
Days later his Justice Department quietly removed the noose from around the neck of Chinagate kingpin James Riady, allowing the Clinton benefactor to walk away from the most serious scandal in American history, in exchange for a token fine and community service that Riady was permitted to perform on the honor system back home in Indonesia.
Bush has kept the prosecutorial dogs muzzled in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York, as dueling grand juries heard evidence all summer implicating Bill, Hillary and even former first brother Roger Clinton in a pardons-for-cash scam where a fugitive billionaire, a major cocaine dealer and even a Mafia don got White House shakedowns.
It got so bad that when outgoing Clinton staffers vandalized the White House and Air Force One stewards reported items missing after the Clintons' last flight home, President Bush gritted his teeth, smiled as though it never happened and refused to let his aides investigate.
In short, in the interest of political comity, George Bush handcuffed justice and allowed the former first family to make a total and complete mockery of the law.
Now, however, as the partisan squabbling and media hysteria reach a fevered pitch over the Enron scandal, Democrats herald the arrival of "Bush's Whitewater." It's clear the president's strategy to give the Clintons a break and stem the tide of political retribution has failed - and failed miserably.
Without so much as a hint of Bush administration impropriety, the Democrat-media machine has ginned up no fewer than eight federal and congressional probes into the energy giant's collapse.
Politicians who decried the money spent probing the real Whitewater scandal - "Seven years, $70 million dollars - and for what?" they complained - can barely conceal their burning desire for new impeachment hearings that will install a Democrat in the White House in 2004.
How should Bush respond? Simple. Unshackle the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York and let prosecutors there show Washington's political ingrates what criminal wrongdoing really looks like.
It's time to take the muzzle off lead prosecutor Elliot Jacobson, who at last word was heading up the probe and who clearly had enough evidence to file charges against Roger Clinton by last summer.
It's well past time to move against the Clinton family's Golden Girls, Denise Rich and Beth Dozoretz, both of whom told Congress last year that if they told the truth about Pardongate, "it might tend to incriminate me."
And it's time to publicly call both Bill and Hillary Clinton before the Pardongate grand juries - and, unlike what happened in Whitewater, let the grand jurors themselves decide if the evidence warrants prosecution.
Democrats now foaming at the mouth over "Enrongate" didn't know when they had a good thing, and in fact, it's now plain that Bush's indulgence only engendered their contempt.
Now that the Washington scandal machine has Bush in its crosshairs, it's time for the president to make sure the rules apply to both sides equally - and if that means prosecuting Bill and Hillary Clinton, so be it.
He is now in a position that his DOJ "HAS" to investigate Enron. No one will ever convince me that President Bush and his people didn't know the investigation was going to lead right back at the RATS and clintons.
The democRATS mistook his honest desire to get along as being weak -- they had better think again! This man from Texas is not weak and the democRATS and clintons are about to find it out.
Message to the RATS: Be careful what you ask for!
Precisely.... those who feel like doing a little activist work will find tools here:
If the Clintons want to try to tar you with Mena, better now and be done with it than letting it linger for the next forty years through inuendo. It's bad enough that the next Dim president's free pass is going to be criminality comparable to Clinton's.
With American's life-and-death-and-what's-really-important sensitivities heightened via 9/11, it's a ripe time for cleansing. Part of that is to have institutions which let the truth chips fall where it may, rather than Hitlery-like (murder-in-the-wings) politically-leveraged intrigue running the show.
I think Enron was a vehicle to liquidate power-into-cash to Clinton's friends, and that the bubble burst only now to leave egg apparently on Bush's team is a $66B sleight of political hand--much, much more threatening to our country and economy than a screwed up CIA plan in HillBilly country.
Further good moves from Bush could strengthen the Republican side (so as to retain and increase power) for the entire decade. Go, Dubya, go!
HF
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.