Robert Scheer: Enron's enablers go unpunished

[n2doc]

Enron's enablers go unpunished
Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006

NO, I'M NOT THRILLED about Jeffrey Skilling getting 24 years in prison for his role in the Enron scandal. While he and fellow Enron head-honcho Kenneth Lay were clearly guilty as charged, the handling of this case by the Bush Justice Department is a functional coverup of the Bush family's role in enabling these crimes. The thousands of Enron employees who lost their jobs, as well as $2 billion in pension money and $60 billion in share value, deserve better. By focusing on narrowly drawn criminal charges and the public's wrath on Skilling and his late partner-in-crime -- "Kenny Boy" Lay, as President Bush referred to his one-time chief campaign benefactor -- the culpability of the president's family in this sordid saga is being whitewashed.

How convenient to close the book without considering the ties between the Enron perps and those in two Bush presidencies whose actions enabled these hustlers. The Enron crooks would never have been more than petty thieves were it not for the political support they received from their fellow Texas oil buddies. They knew that and they paid for it: Over the years, Lay and Enron gave the Bush family's politicians $3 million in contributions, as well as lending the campaigning George W. a jet on at least eight occasions. They did so because, without the deregulation of the energy industry pushed by the first President Bush, Enron would have remained a minor company without the capacity to swindle. At the time, Lay wrote a column supporting the elder Bush's re-election by praising him as "the energy president" because "just six months after George Bush became president, he directed ... the most ambitious and sweeping energy plan ever proposed."

Specifically, Enron benefited mightily from a key ruling by Wendy Gramm, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under George H.W. Bush, permitting Enron to trade in highly profitable energy derivatives. A mere five weeks after rendering that ruling, Gramm, the wife of then-U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, abruptly resigned to join the Enron board of directors, where she served on the company's now-infamous "see-no-evil'' audit committee. Secretary of State James Baker and Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher also rushed to work for Enron after their White House tenure.

Dubya first got involved with Enron's Lay when they both worked on his daddy's campaign and the relationship flowered during his years as governor of Texas. There is, in fact, a long paper trail of "Dear Ken" and "Dear George" exchanges that have come to light, thanks to Freedom of Information Act requests. The correspondence exposes the active support given by Bush to Enron's expansion into markets ranging from Uzbekistan to Pennsylvania. As Lay wrote to Bush in a letter dated Oct. 7, 1997, "I very much appreciated your call to Gov. Tom Ridge a few days ago. I am certain that will have a positive impact on the way he and others view our proposal."

more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/10/25/EDG6PKE0BH1.DTL

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