Democrats' Plan Revealed: Enron, Enron, Enron

Democratic Party Chairman Terry "The Investor" McAuliffe has denied knowledge of this memo – twice. But there it is, in all its glory!

You've heard about it, haven't you? It's a memo circulated among Democrats this week by leftist political hit men James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Shrum. The memo instructs Democrats on what to do and what to say to get the political edge on the Republicans and George Bush for the 2002 elections.

So, how does the Carville gang propose to damage Bush's high approval ratings? Enron, of course! They can't get him on the war, the public is solidly behind Bush there. Ditto for the economy, Bush has the support there too. Fact is, the Democrats were desperate for an issue – and along comes Enron.

At first the Democrats were almost sure that they were going to find some sort of a smoking gun in the Enron bankruptcy. Certainly someone in the Bush administration did something to help Enron cover up its fraudulent accounting practices. Certainly Bush did something to keep the regulators off Enron's back so that Enron could trash its employees and investors.

So the search was on, and they found – nothing. All those campaign contributions – Enron goes begging for help – and Bush does NOTHING. What kind of a politician is this?

So far the only thing the leftists have to play with is this strange stand the White House is taking – that administration officials should be free to have confidential conversations with industry leaders when formulating administration policy.

Sadly, too many ill-informed voters seem to think that neither a president nor any member of his staff or Cabinet should be allowed to have confidential conversations. The Democrats will work to exploit this ignorance.

That brings us to the Carville gang and its memo. The stated conclusion in that memo is that the Democrats must hang the Enron bankruptcy on Bush and the Republicans. It's really their only hope for success in the 2002 elections.

Carville tells the Democrats that the Enron story "... has the potential to shape the entire political environment for 2002 and reduce confidence in the Bush administration and Republicans. This is an issue where Democrats ought to talk about right and wrong, greed and responsibility. The more people hear, the more corrosive it becomes."

OK – take that last sentence: "The more people hear, the more corrosive it [Enron] becomes." Notice that Carville didn't say "the more people learn." It was "the more people hear."

In other words, keep tying Bush and the Republicans to Enron. The more times the voters hear it the more they are likely to believe it – and Bush's approval ratings will corrode.

The memo goes on: "… voters are beginning to rethink the character of Bush's domestic initiatives. – Most telling is the erosion of the Bush administration's Teflon coating. – Enron obviously reopens a side to George W. Bush that even now raises important worries for voters."

Just keep talking about the Bush administration and Enron until the ill-informed American public begins to see the two as synonymous. It doesn't matter about the truth; just keep naming them in the same sentence.

You would think that voters would fail to fall for the Democratic ploy – especially after learning of the Carville gang memo.

Well, maybe they would – IF, that is, they ever hear about the memo! Do you think it will be covered on "Entertainment Tonight"? Will Oprah spill the beans? Will Brokaw, Jennings or Rather bring it up?

Atlanta's new mayor announced a nearly 50 percent proper tax hike for already over-taxed Atlantans yesterday, completely ignoring a potential budget windfall that could actually lead to lower property taxes. The good news, though, is that someone at the Atlanta Journal Constitution has finally taken notice.

The AJC ran an Internet poll this morning. The results, though encouraging, aren't as important as the choices given for answers. The question was "What's the best approach to easing the city's financial shortfall?" The possible answers were:

Raising property taxes
Cutting spending
Drawing new businesses as revenue source
Lease or privatize the airport
Drawing new businesses took 5 percent. Raising property taxes, the route taken by the mayor, had the support of 7 percent of the respondents. Next came cutting spending, with 27 percent. The grand winner – by a huge margin – was lease or privatize the airport, with 61 percent.

Leasing Hartsfield would generate enough revenue for the City of Atlanta to actually reduce, not increase, property taxes. That's the good side. The bad side is that Hartsfield would not be sitting there to be used as a political patronage plum by the mayor and city council members.

The question the city officials have asked themselves is "Do I want to turn Hartsfield International Airport into a revenue-generating machine for the City of Atlanta if I can no longer use that airport as a source of political power? The answer is clear ... a resounding "No."

The Democratic Socialist Party has also made a big show of bringing in Jesse Jackson and his group of former Enron employees. Jesse told them that the Bush administration will spend $15 billion rebuilding Afghanistan and that the American public rushed to the aid of New Yorkers with "huge sums of money." He said the Enron workers deserve no less. The Sloganmaster says, "These workers need a restructured bailout." You can only wonder what his cut will be.

A new ID card for workers in the travel industry could be extended to travelers and allow them to bypass stringent security checks at airports. Israel already has a "trusted traveler" card in effect.

Some people are concerned that this is a way in the backdoor for a national ID card. The main trick is going to be creating a foolproof way to match the card to the person. That will be accomplished by "biometrics," which will have a computer-coded fingerprint or iris scan embedded in the card.

I'm still not sure how they could make them counterfeit-proof. The terrorists have some pretty savvy computer geeks at their disposal.

Oh … for those of you who are concerned about invasions of your privacy? Easy solution. Don't get the card. Just go through security with the rest of the great unwashed.

That's how much the country owes the U.N. in back dues. As a result, it isn't allowed to vote in the General Assembly this year. Now, you all know how I feel about the U.N., but refusing to let Afghanistan vote because of $4,600? From an organization that deals with a budget in the billions?

Here is their little memo by the snake RAts! It has backfired on them big time.

Scandals surrounding Enron offer excellent prospects to hurt rightist politicos behind the ’00 Coup. Enron’s calamitous collapse touches every rightist shibboleth from "private accounts" for Social Security to pretensions of personal integrity. The spectacle of Enron, bankrupted by theft, affronts rightist voting blocs as much as it does us on the left. This means the broadest possible mass of the people will be receptive to agitation crying up Enron scandals.

While just how Enron was looted baffles first sight, a criminal spine to Enron scandals is both clear and familiar to the people: a thief (Mr. Lay) gives much cash to a politician (Bush); thereafter, the thief enjoys great favor and wealth as the politician rises to greater power still. That is a clear fact of the circumstance everybody understands, and therefore none can successfully hide.

How can Enron best be used by the left in the forthcoming general election? In two ways. First, to lend a generally criminal air to Republican fundraising, and fundraising by Bush in particular. Second, to depress turnout by rightist voters, by inducing apathy through disillusion.
Republican electoral success depends on great financial predominance. The willingness of rich rightists to donate large sums to Bush is a principal weapon in the enemy’s armory. The exigencies of wartime politics have already acted to reduce his fundraising capabilities somewhat, by rendering unseemly any aggressively partisan activity by a purportedly national leader (as Bush claims himself to be).

By political action emphasizing Mr. Lay’s great investments in Bush, as well as the clear favor Mr. Lay enjoyed, Bush’s ability to raise party funds can be reduced still further. All funds Bush does raise can be tainted with scandal; all party functions he attends can be made occasion for protesting donations by criminals to him.

Any number of Bush’s "Pioneer" bag-men will be discovered still active, tainted by connections to Mr. Lay, and shown to be enjoying presently favors from Bush, just like the ones Mr. Lay did. The press establishment’s public commitment to "campaign finance reform" will force them to echo such sentiments, if they are sharply pressed by, and among, the people.

Rightist voting strength depends on a coalition of free-market believers and traditionalists. It is unwieldy: nothing is so corrosive of traditional mores as free markets; nothing is more traditional than calling for government curbs on thieving merchants.

Mr. Lay’s thieving shows so all can clearly see that markets are neither free nor well regulated, simply rigged, and Bush’s connivance in the thefts makes the realization he is in on the fix just as unavoidable.

Free market believers have no defense against a fact of rigged markets; traditionalists always suspect markets of being rigged. Making Enron into a symbol for all the thimble-rigging, for all the shady accounting and look-away auditing and carnival shilling the rubes that goes in to rigging markets, and shoving it all at Bush and his Republicans by use of Mr. Lay’s cash presents to Bush, must have some depressive and disillusioning effects on both components of the rightist coalition.

Free market believers without much real property of their own, the greatest proportion of them by far, must view with some alarm the routine deception of major accounting firms and mutual funds that Mr. Lay, by leave of Bush, engaged in, to his and his cronies profit. Free market believers with little property know enough to know it is they themselves who are the sheep these wolves seek.

Traditionalists, who are moved by a conscious thrill of virtue when, instead of serving their material interests by voting left, they stand and do the "right" thing by voting for a rightist candidate, with integrity and values, must view with some repulsion the greed displayed by those they have trusted to lead the nation. Mr. Lay’s thieving, and Bush’s cash-bought conniving in it, must become for some of them one more great disappointment, in lives marked by many of them.

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