KRUGMAN ON HARKENGATE
Dismisses SEC Investigation: "Peculiarly Perfunctory"
Insider Trading, Insider Investigating, Insider Governing
No Moral Authority: "Tough Talk Won't Scare Well-Connected"
The Insider Game
nytimes.com
Paul Krugman
An aside: Some pundits have tried to dismiss questions about Mr. Bush's business career as unfair — it was long ago, and hence irrelevant. Yet many of these same pundits thought it was perfectly appropriate to spend seven years and $70 million investigating a failed land deal that was even further in Bill Clinton's past. And if they want something more recent, how about reporting on the story of Mr. Bush's extraordinarily lucrative investment in the Texas Rangers, which became so profitable because of a highly incestuous web of public policy and private deals? As in the case of Harken, no hard work is necessary; Joe Conason laid it all out in Harper's almost two years ago.
But the Harken story still has more to teach us, because the S.E.C. investigation into Mr. Bush's stock sale is a perfect illustration of why his tough talk won't scare well-connected malefactors.
Mr. Bush claims that he was "vetted" by the S.E.C. In fact, the agency's investigation was peculiarly perfunctory. It somehow decided that Mr. Bush's perfectly timed stock sale did not reflect inside information without interviewing him, or any other members of Harken's board. Maybe top officials at the S.E.C. felt they already knew enough about Mr. Bush: his father, the president, had appointed a good friend as S.E.C. chairman. And the general counsel, who would normally make decisions about legal action, had previously been George W. Bush's personal lawyer — he negotiated the purchase of the Texas Rangers. I am not making this up.
Source: mediawhoresonline.com
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