Secrecy is the true American tragedy
Found under the rubble of the Enron scandal was
Ralph Reed, founder of the Christian Coalition,
protege of Karl Rove and Republican party
choirboy.
As The New York Times reported last week, Enron had hired Reed as a
consultant in 1997 for fees ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 (U.S.) a month and
kept him on the payroll until the corporation filed for bankruptcy.
Rove, who is now President George W. Bush's chief political adviser, says he
praised Reed to Enron so often that the company finally got the hint and hired
him. But the real reason Reed was hired, says The Times, was to freeze the
evangelical leader in place for the Bush 2000 presidential campaign.
The newspaper also reported that with Reed on Enron's payroll, it would be easier
to provide cover for Bush, not yet publicly a candidate for the Republican
nomination.
That works out to about a half-million dollars (U.S.) of ground cover to hide the
Bush-Reed axis.
I should mention, Reed quit the leadership of his Christian Coalition, ran for the
Republican leadership himself and kept on cashing Enron cheques while serving
the interests of Rove, who was working for Bush.
Also, I recall candidate Bush calling upon some virtuous man like himself to clean
up politics in the nation's capital. As for Reed, he was representing himself as
God's top gun at Republican prayer meetings and in dialogue with William
Bennett, who wrote a book on good moral character and its importance. It is not
known to have been a best seller at Enron or in other leading Republican circles.
Rove, predictably, has testified Ñ to quote The Times Ñ the Enron contract "had
nothing to do with the Bush campaign." Reed agrees with Rove's analysis.
To be more precise, Rove told The Times: "I think I talked to someone before
Ralph got hired. But I may have talked to him afterwards. I'm a big fan of
Ralph's, so I'm always saying positive things."
Anyway, the power of positive thinking did not save Enron or its creative
accountants, bankers, brokers, analysts.
Since the news of Reed's conversion to the consultant business, I have not heard
Rove Ñ the biggest fish in the Bush organization Ñ or Reed, easily one of the
more godly ones, mentioned in the television news game. It would have made a
great Crossfire show, it seems to me, even if it only got talked about a little more,
and some reassurance from Bennett, the nation's principal U.S. moralist, who
never stopped talking during the Clinton troubles. But Bennett has fallen silent. So
has Reed and not a peep from Rove. The new CNN slogan is: "All the news you
need." Don't they need The New York Times over there?
As far as I am concerned Ñ and I am concerned Ñ American (private) television
is on the take, trading boilerplate government propaganda for hard news. The
trouble with private television is not the prevalence of Velveeta, the banality and
the brainlessness, but the gutlessness of its journalism.
The hidden truth is that television is not allowed to speak the truth, nor allowed to
show the truth. CNN promotes the defence department's briefings from Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, media's true friend, who engagingly withholds information
while earning praise for his candour.
Why can't the media visit the contentious Cuban prisoner of war camps? Why
can't the allied media visit the camps and interview the imprisoned? What is their
secret?
The secret is the same as all the other "secrets" Ñ the war is secret, no one needs
to know and, in the infamous and childish litany of the Bush administration,
unless we keep our secrets from the enemy "they win." Unless you spend more
money, "they win" Ñ or eat your porridge, or cut taxes, or believe in Rumsfeld,
"they win."
But the censors have already won.
The shame of it is the free press has already lost because, unless the government
controls war coverage, the truth may hurt,and people will know for themselves
something of the reality of their condition. This could affect ratings, advertising
revenues and opinion polls. America, according to censored opinion, has already
won the war. It is, indeed, a pity to have won the war and failed to report it.
A nation whose leadership does not trust its people to seek the truth has already
lost more than any cheap victory can provide.
This is a true American tragedy.
We may now speculate upon the future coming of other Karl Roves, larger
Enrons, CNNs of lesser courage and more voracious hunger for profit and
power, and perhaps, livelier dodgers even than old Rumsfeld. Of course, such
could be deemed unlikely given the constitution, the guarantees of press freedom.
But then, where we are today, few, if any of us, could have seen coming.
Dalton Camp is a political commentator. His column appears in The Star on
Wednesday and Sunday.
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