For eight years, the right-wing shrieked "Whitewater!" and
"Travelgate!" and "Paula Jones!" in a series of
savage attempts at politically-manufactured scandal, none of
which stuck too well to then-President Clinton, their arch-
enemy. Well, the right-wing has scandal galore now! And it isn't
manufactured politically, either. The collapse of Enron
Corporation, one of the largest corporate disintegrations in
American history, is absolutely rife with scandal -- only the
names involved are not "Clinton" and "McDougal," but "Cheney"
and "Bush" and "Ashcroft!"
Ah yes, there is scandal aplenty, and more scandal yet to come!
George W. Bush's good buddy and largest campaign contributor,
Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, tried himself (and ordered his
henchmen to try) to get special favors and preferential
treatment for his failing energy behemoth from the very top
levels of the Bush administration. This, after Lay prevented
Enron employee-shareholders from selling their stock, while the
company's share price plummeted wiping out the life savings of
thousands.
Defrauding the shareholders and his employees is the least of
Lay's perfidy. As Enron's shady accounting practices and
hidden zillions in debt were slowly becoming public, Lay and
other top executives helped themselves to tens of millions in
bonuses from the company's evaporating coffers. Yes, the
"little people" were ruined, but not Lay and his crew -- they
reaped gigantic incomes, and they sold off the majority of
their stock while the shares were still valuable.
On top of those almost-unbelievable acts of outright thievery
and fraud by Lay and company, Enron's auditor -- Arthur
Anderson LLC, one of the world's top and most respected
accounting firms -- has disclosed that it intentionally destroyed
thousands of documents relating to Enron and its finances, and
who knows what else! Could it be that those documents may
have too-prominently featured the names of George W. Bush, his
Attorney General, his Energy Secretary, his Vice-President, and
other Cabinet officials? Attorney General John Ashcroft at least
is already running scared. He quickly announced he was
disqualifying himself from the Justice Department's
investigation of Enron, because he had accepted tens of
thousands of dollars in contributions to his own failed Senate
campaign from Lay's company!
Scandal, indeed! And a few items previously made public with
little fanfare will now, no doubt, receive more attention. Like
the fact that Enron executives and managers, during the 2000
Bush campaign, received orders from the top regarding the sum
they would individually be contributing to George W.'s
presidential bid. Not suggesting a contribution, mind you --
ORDERING them to contribute from their personal
funds to the Bush campaign!
There have been reliably-substantiated rumors for months, now,
that Lay and Enron were well-represented in the practically-
secret meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the
nation's energy policy, early on in 2001. Cheney and the White
House have refused to disclose exactly who met with the V.P. or
exactly what was discussed, in spite of grumbling from some
members of Congress to find out just what went on. Expect that
grumbling to be renewed, at ear-splitting volume, as the Enron
scandal grows deeper and wider.
To employ one of Bush's favorite cliche's, "Make no mistake" --
there is real scandal here beyond anything the right-wing tried
to cook up against Bill Clinton! Scandal, and with that scandal
is going to come in rapid succession disgrace, and resignations,
and prison, both at Enron and in the Bush administration.
Among a different crowd, there would also have been a few
suicides, but that sort of suicide proceeds from an
overwhelming sense of shame -- and everyone involved in this
debacle has already proven that they have no shame at
all.
How, you may well ask, could a man like Lay think he was going
to get away with this? He and his executives and directors
constructed a terrifyingly-Byzantine web of shadowy corporate
connections and undisclosed partnerings, to hide Enron's
staggering debts from shareholders, creditors, and every agency
of the government. Then he lied to employees to prevent them
from unloading billions in Enron stock held in their 401(k)
retirement accounts, while meanwhile profiting enormously from
his own holdings. Knowing quite well that the company was
headed for the skids, he paid himself and his top cronies
millions and millions in bonuses, like some demented Lord
Bountiful raiding one of America's biggest piggy-banks. And, Lay
somehow convinced a gigantic and reputable accounting firm to
"cook the books!"
That's a damned enormous set of lies, and considering how easy
it is to get caught in even the simplest lie, it seems absolutely
incredible that Lay clearly expected to get away with it.
Incredible, that it, unless you consider that he may have thought
he had the President and Vice-President and Attorney General of
the United States in his pocket. If so, where do you suppose he
got that notion? Maybe from the principals themselves? Only
those principals likely had no idea of just how colossal and
imminent the crash of Enron was going to be!
Yes, dear readers, scandal and disgrace and resignations and
imprisonment. All the things the right-wing clamored for all
those years, and now they have them "in spades" as my old
Grammy would have phrased it! Except that it's the members
of their revered team, their own shining conservatives,
supposed guardians of moral purity and fiscal restraint, who are
getting tarred with the sticky black brush of scandal, who are
seeing their names coupled with disgrace, who may be
considering resignation, or living with the dread of financial ruin
and the horror of imprisonment, as the Enron scandal gets larger
with every passing day. Sort of a good joke on the most
loudmouthed of the Clinton-bashing right-wingers, eh? I can
never quite recall the author of the saying, "Be careful what you
wish for -- you might get it." Well, the ultraconservatives and
reactionaries wished mightily for scandal, and now by god they
have all the scandal they wanted. Just not hung on the guy they
wanted to disgrace, alas for their poor pipe-dreams!
Rejoice, America! The Enron scandal is already making deep
inroads among Bush officials -- some fifteen top administration
members were just forced to disclose that they owned Enron
stock -- and as the Congressional investigation, the Justice
Department inquiry, and the Securities & Exchange Commission
investigations dig deeper and deeper, this scandal is bound to
make hash of 'President' Bush and his gang of right-wing
cronies, politically. They got him into the Oval Office with a
shoehorn -- now maybe their greed and smugness is going to get
Bush booted out, and what a triumph for democracy and fair
play that will be!
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