White House Downplays Bush-Enron Ties

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House sought Thursday to minimize President Bush's ties with indicted former Enron chief Kenneth Lay, saying it has been a long time since they talked and suggesting it was only a passing friendship.

When Bush was governor of Texas, he called Lay "Kenny Boy" and Enron was a big financial backer. Bush has received more than $550,000 in donations from Enron, its employees and their relatives during his political career - the most from any source.

Lay was accused in an 11-count indictment of being involved in a wide-ranging scheme to deceive the public, company shareholders and government regulators about the energy company that he founded and led to industry prominence before its collapse in 2001.

"Cracking down on corporate wrongdoing is a top priority for this president," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said when asked about Lay's indictment Thursday. "The administration is taking strong and aggressive actions to pursue corporate wrongdoers and to strengthen corporate accountability. I don't think I'm going to get into discussing specifically a criminal indictment."

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040708/D83MMJUO1.html

[donhakman]

1. yep, we shouldn't

[htuttle]

3. Poppy on Ken Lay: "You have been fantastic to the Bush family."

"I don't think anybody did more than you did to support George..."
-- from a 1997 video tape

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1944068&mesg_id=1944068

[LeftHander]

2. What about the ENron Plane usage....

ANyone got the photo of Bush waving from the Enron plane...

[LuminousX]

4. No photo but there is this

http://www.opensecrets.org/newsletter/ce74/flying.asp

Indeed, the list of companies providing such discounted travel reads almost identical to the list of major contributors to Bush's presidential campaign. Enron Corp, whose employees gave more than $118,000 to Bush, was reimbursed almost $60,000 for 14 flights during the campaign, including two flights reported after Election Day. Meanwhile, MBNA, Bush's top financial supporter with $238,000 in contributions, was paid nearly $20,000 for five flights.