"Enronitis" Ravishing the GOP!
David Corn, AlterNet
January 25, 2002
A new and contagious ailment is spreading through Republican circles; call it
"enronitis." This condition, only recently identified, strikes suddenly and
brings about a state of discombobulation, causing the afflicted, in the words
of one medical expert, "to talk foolishness" when he or she is confronted
with questions involving a particular energy company.
A classic case of this disorder was recently displayed on Meet the Press.
(Already two research teams have begun papers regarding this episode.)
The newly elected chairman of the Republican Party, Marc Racicot, was
asked a straightforward question by Tim Russert: "The President first said
that Mr. [Ken] Lay [the Enron CEO] was a supporter of [former Texas
governor] Ann Richards. In fact, Mr. Lay gave ... Bush three times more
money than Ann Richards in 1994 [when Bush was challenging Richards].
And Mr. Lay said he worked with Governor Bush ... on the presidential
library with his father, worked with him on the '92 convention. Why can't the
president and the Bush administration simply say, 'Ken Lay was a friend, he
was a big financial supporter, and we told him no [when he contacted Bush
officials as Enron was collapsing]'?"
Here was Russert offering spin-advice to the GOP chairman. But since
Racicot was in the grip of enronitis, he was not able to reply, "You're right,
Tim. That's essentially what happened." Instead he responded, "I think the
evidence is plain that, in fact, there have been a number of different
opportunities to deal with people that have been supportive of you in a
campaign in a variety of different races all across the country, and as a
consequence of that, there may be some assumptions, or an attempt to
manufacture an issue ... But the president has very plainly stated that he
wants all of the facts to be investigated, all of them to be presented so that
the kinds of lessons that ought to be learned from this particular episode can
be learned once and for all."
The evidence may be plain, but the meaning of Racicot's sentences were
not. It is not unusual for political figures to duck questions, but often it is
done in a coherent manner. Racicot, according to epidemiologists studying
this outbreak, probably contracted enronitis when he recently was employed
as a lobbyist for Enron. Racicot claims he was merely helping the firm with a
single legislative matter and was not aware of its perilous financial condition
or its fraudulent essence.
Which raises the question: what's worse -- being an mercenary who
wittingly tries to obtain legislative favors for swindlers or being a mercenary
who is willing, for a steep fee, to win influence for a firm engaged in business
he or she does not fully understand? (Trust me, if you read the recent
congressional testimony presented to Senate government affairs committee
about Enron's under-the-table dependence on complicated, convoluted, and
shady derivatives trading, you'd know that none of Enron's political pals and
fixers -- which included former Christian Coalition boy-king Ralph Reed
and current Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey -- could have
comprehended what the Enron racketeers were up to.)
After Racicot was chosen by Bush to head up the Republican Party, he
placed his lobbying career on hold, but he did not leave the
law-and-lobbying firm of Bracewell and Patterson, which hired him after his
term as Montana governor came to a close. So if he's no longer lobbying,
what is he doing for B&P? "Strategy," says Racicot.
This is an old dodge. Former government officials and others who do not
want to be tagged lobbyists frequently present themselves as government
affairs strategists. They do not, as registered lobbyists do, travel the
corridors of Congress and federal agencies, buttonholing lawmakers and
officials to obtain preferential treatment for their corporate clients. Instead,
they tell the lobbyists working for their firm or their client whom to talk to
and how to plead their case. That is, they coach the lobbyists.
Racicot's Enron connection has been a mild embarrassment for the
Republicans. Lucky for him and them there's still a war going on. Not
uncoincidentally, one treatment for enronitis's symptoms -- though not the
disease -- is distraction.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also has caught this virus. When
asked about Lay's come-as-you-are access to the White House -- Enron
reps met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force at least half a
dozen times -- Fleischer retorted, "The President thinks that access should
be across the board. And that's why the Sierra Club, for example, as you
know, met repeatedly with the energy task force."
But as a quickly-issued Sierra Club press release noted, what Bush's
mouthpiece "failed to say is that the administration officials met with Sierra
Club representatives only AFTER crafting and releasing their energy plan."
The Enron Pipelines-and-Pyramid-Schemes Gang was granted audiences
while the Veep was drawing up the Bush plan and, consequently, had the
chance to pitch policies that would benefit you-know-who. It is tough to
believe that even such a daring spinmeister as Fleischer would have
attempted to peddle such audacious dissembling had his faculties not been
impaired by this new disease.
Others close to the Oval Office have felt the sting of enronitis. After Bush
finally claimed on January 22 that he was "outraged" by the Enron collapse,
revealing that his mother-in-law had lost $8000 by investing in the company,
his communications director Dan Bartlett said, "This was definitely not a
predetermined strategy shift of any sort."
Then why had the President said nothing critical of the company until a flood
of hearings was under way in Congress and Republicans were beginning to
worry the White House was vulnerable to charges it had been too comfy
with Enron?
Bush advisers told The New York Times that the President "did not act
sooner to denounce Enron because he and his aides were inundated with
questions about ties between the administration and Enron officials." So
Bush himself was too busy, night and day, researching all those press
queries, too overwhelmed with this process ("Hey, don't bug me, I'm
looking through old phone logs to find out the last time Ken Lay called and
said, 'I still can't believe you're in the White House") to utter one short
sentence, such as "They screwed Laura's ma, and, boy, am I POed."
But -- wait -- didn't Bush have time to watch a football game and faint after
gagging on a pretzel? And wasn't he able to spend a whole day with Tom
Brokaw for the NBC special "Inside the Real West Wing"? Too occupied
to express anger at his old pal (a.k.a. Kenny Boy)? Must be the enronitis
talking.
Even the President is not immune. In an interview with Brokaw, Bush tried
to distance himself from Enron: "My Justice Department is going to lead a
full investigation. Some say you should have done something. I don't know
what they mean about that."
Well, perhaps they mean that the Bush Administration should not have
cozied up to the bamboozlers of Enron -- a move that could have
emboldened Lay and his partners-in-sleaze. ("With our friends running the
government, now's the time!") In April, during the California energy crisis,
Cheney met with Lay, Bush's largest campaign contributor, and listened to
him make the case against price caps. The following day, Cheney
telephoned The Los Angeles Times to speak out against caps. Certainly,
corporate-friendly minds think alike, but Lay could have been forgiven had
he believed his White House string-pulling netted results.
And when it came time to appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, Bush happened to select people backed by Lay
and happened to replace a chairman opposed by Lay. Curtis Hebert Jr, the
FERC chairman, told The New York Times that Lay had offered him a
deal: agree with Enron's view on electricity deregulation and the firm would
support him. (Lay, not surprisingly, recalls the conversation differently.)
Hebert says he turned Lay down, and several months later he was no longer
chairman. (Note to congressional investigators: look here.)
It may be true there was not much the Bush Administration could have done
to save Enron -- not that it deserved saving -- or protect the employees and
investors. But it warmly embraced Lay's policy and personnel
recommendations -- conduct which, if not illegal, still warrants scrutiny. By
doing so, the Bush White House provided Lay and Enron plenty of reason
to believe that they were special, that they had influence. A mother-in-law
dropping eight thou does not inoculate Bush. He should expect to face
further bouts of enronitis. The question is whether this condition is temporary
or chronic.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation.
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