[gridlock]

Working from the assumption that Krugman is working hard to make GWB look as dirty as possible, there are a few glaring ommissions from his detailing of the "smoking gun" transaction.

But long before that ruling — though only a few weeks before bad news that could not be concealed caused Harken's shares to tumble — Mr. Bush sold off two-thirds of his stake, for $848,000. Just for the record, that's about four times bigger than the sale that has Martha Stewart in hot water. Oddly, though the law requires prompt disclosure of insider sales, he neglected to inform the S.E.C. about this transaction until 34 weeks had passed. An internal S.E.C. memorandum concluded that he had broken the law, but no charges were filed. This, everyone insists, had nothing to do with the fact that his father was president.

A few questions Krugman chooses not to answer:

- How many weeks before the stock drop did GWB sell? Did he have access to information that the stock was about to drop at the time? If not, why not share this information?
- How far did the stock actually drop? Did it recover? How much money was lost?
- How big was GWB's profit (or loss) from this transaction?
- What is the "prompt disclosure" period required by the SEC? Was it two weeks or 32 weeks? Krugman doesn't say.
- What is the reason given for no prosecution in the SEC internal memorandum? Krugman posits his reason, but doesn't waste the ink telling us what actually happened.

Oh, and BTW, Paul, back in GHWB's administration, the New York Times used to capitalize "President". This lower case "president" thingie is the petty game that only applies to GWB.

[Dog Gone]

The fact is that this has been publicly aired many times. The Democrats tried to use it to defeat Bush when he was running to unseat Governor Ann Richards of Texas. Whole books have been written on it.

If you selectively report the facts, omitting many relevant and important details, you can certainly create the impression that Bush was manipulating the books and doing insider trading. That is their goal.

The fact that it's not true, and they know it's not true, is disgusting. But it's an orchestrated campaign at this time to paint Bush as somehow part of the problem with Wall Street today, and the willing American press is more than happy to follow the lead of the New York Times and treat this Harken story as news.

[Pitchfork]

Its mazing how much the defense of Bush on this issues echoes the Dems defense of the Clintons.

1) Remember the old "they lost money" dodge? Apparently, it's only coruption or a crime if you profit regardless of whether your a Dem or a Rep. Its laugable to read a critique of Krugman asking whether Bush profited from the sale--the same kind of defense used so often for Bill and Hillary!

2) "These activities were raised as during his sucessful Gubernatorial campaign". Apparently if your dirty laundry has been aired once in a state-wide election it's 'old news' that can't ever be used against you again regardless of how much current events make it relevant. We heard this kind of defense endlessly over both Whitewater and Clinton's affairs. "We knew all this when he was re-elected in 92" they chimed.

3) Ad-hominem attacks. Krugman is a squishy liberal and therefore we can reject everything he says as a lie. This type of attack was regularly repeated by the "right wing conspiracy" pundits on the left during Clinton's impeachment and the SP investigations.

What does this tell you? Simply this: Human beings are facinating psychological specimens who will go to extrodinary lengths to avoid having to re-assess their beliefs. "I like Bush, he's a good guy who agrees with me" so I'll stick my head in the sand or make up lame counter-arguments to hide from myself from the fact that he's not a straight-arrow. It's amazing what partisanship can do!