'Bad Lay'
Chickens coming home to roost.
By Alan Bisbort, Hartford Advocate July 15
It was an image that was almost worth the two-year wait. The worst corporate criminal since the Robber Barons of the 1890s, his arms handcuffed behind his back, slouching into court with his Marie Antoinette wife shadowing him from a safe distance.
Kenneth L. Lay, chairman and CEO of Enron, has been brought to justice. In Texas, no less. Kenneth L. "Kenny Boy" Lay, the main benefactor for George W. Bush's political career and the veritable poster boy for the Republican Party in the last election. The same guy who flew Bush and Cheney around the campaign trail in his company jet. The same guy who was co-chairman of George H.W. Bush's 1992 re-election campaign. In short, the same guy who is so intimately and obviously linked to the Bushes that even the Democrats have figured it out.
As Greg Palast put it, "Ken Lay and his Enron team are the Number One political career donors to George W. Bush. Mr. Lay and his Mrs., with no money to pay back bilked creditors, still managed to personally put up $100,000 for George's inaugural Ball plus $793,110 for personal donations to Republicans. Lay's Enron team dropped $4.2 million into the party."
For all this dough, Lay gained instant access to the White House. He almost certainly sat on Dick Cheney's national energy policy-making panel, though for now we don't have the proof because the Supreme Court ruled that Cheney could keep those public records buried in his bunker.
And I still haven't gotten to the crimes for which Kenny Boy was frog-marched into the courtroom!
In case you've forgotten, this is the man who, through his friendship with the disgraced John Rowland, deposited $224 million of our state's treasury, "earned" from the CRRA scam, into his company's bank account. This is the man who, though knowing Enron was collapsing around him, told stockholders and analysts that things couldn't be rosier, even as he himself was unloading his stock -- tantamount to the Titanic's captain telling passengers to keep enjoying the wonderful music even as he's climbing into a lifeboat. Further, Lay told his 32,000 employees (via live e-mail conference) on Sept. 26, 2001, a week before the feces hit the fan, that he was buying up Enron stock and he encouraged them to hang on to theirs. This was good old Kenny Boy, they surely thought, he wouldn't gas his own people, would he? So they hung on to their stock.
And, of course, one month later Enron stock was worth less than a buck, the pensions of 20,000 people were wiped out, as were 5,000 jobs (20,000 total since then). It didn't wipe out Kenneth L. Lay, though. No, when all these folks were piecing their lives back together working double shifts at Wal-Mart, Kenny Boy still owned seven houses, a fleet of cars, copters and jets. He was still spotted at the tony resorts he liked to frequent, still lounging around in designer jogging suits like the Shah of Iran or Ferdinand Marcos, certain that his pals in the White House would return him to his former place of glory.
That must explain why he had the look of a deeply confused man as he was led into the courtroom. He looked more dazed than Saddam, another world Titan recently frog-marched into a courtroom for looting and preying upon his own people.
In the best of all possible worlds, Kenneth L. Lay should be going to prison. However, we live in BushWorld, a parallel universe where up is down, black is white, wounded Vietnam vets like John Kerry and Max Cleland are unpatriotic whereas Chickenhawks sporting flag lapel pins like Cheney and Bush are heroes. Indeed, the day after Lay was led into court, the Pentagon announced that George W. Bush's military records had been "inadvertently" destroyed in a tragic microfilming accident (did anyone else immediately think of the 18-minute gap in the Nixon tapes?).
Therefore, I fully expect that some time between November, when Bush loses the election, and January, when John Kerry takes the Oath of Office, Kenny Boy will be granted a presidential pardon, as will Cheney, the entire front office of Halliburton, Tom DeLay, Jeb Bush, Neil Bush, Marvin Bush, Barbara Bush and George H.W. Bush. Hell, maybe even Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden too.
The real mystery here is not Mr. Lay's culpability in the worst bankruptcy in American history but why it has taken this long to bring him to justice.
Bush was asked about the indictment of Kenny Boy while making a photo-opp-stop in Michigan, but he rudely turned his tail and fled without answering. Brave Sir Robin once again.
Keep fleeing, George.
You may be following Kenny Boy into court yourself.
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