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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (1463)	12/12/2001 8:47:42 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 15516

Positive predictions from sit and spin O'reilly: worldnetdaily.com With the Afghan war going exceedingly well and his approval rating hovering around 80 percent, President Bush has to be one happy Thanksgiving guy. Thus far, he has risen to the occasion – directing what could turn out to be the most successful military operation of the 21st century. America's cause is just, and the bad guys keep falling without many U.S. casualties. But hiding in the weeds, biding its time, is an enemy with its sights trained on Mr. Bush. This is the same foe that ambushed Bush's father in the early '90s and President Clinton throughout his tenure in office. This covert enemy lives to bring down the powerful and successful, and the attackers don't need bombs, anthrax or bullets. They use ink and innuendo. It is a sad fact of life in America that the more successful one becomes, the more media snipers appear to blow your figurative brains out. I've already noticed the first ammunition being loaded against President Bush. The media assault will question his compassion as more Americans lose their jobs in the recession. The strategy will be to portray Mr. Bush's economic stimulus package as ignoring poor and working Americans, by backing corporate tax breaks. Never mind that in order for the economy to rebound, corporations must be persuaded to begin spending again. That will not be mentioned. As soon as the war on terror subsides, Bush's alleged heartlessness will be played up big. You can take this to the bank. Choking the powerful has become a blood sport in America, take it from me. By some mysterious quirk of fate, your humble correspondent has become a media success much to the dismay of many. The more high profile I become – the more vicious and personal the attacks on me get. Recently, Matt Drudge actually accused me of wanting to do a radio program to exploit Rush Limbaugh's deafness – an erroneous charge so vitriolic it took my breath away. For the first time, I now truly understand what people like the Bushes and the Clintons have to deal with. Once in power, you can insulate yourself to a degree, but the hateful arrows will still fly and there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. Of course, the Clintons brought many of the attacks on themselves by behaving badly. But the assaults would have arrived anyway. Once some in the media get a taste of blood, sharks tremble. So I hope George W. Bush is preparing himself. A grateful America honored his father after the Gulf War, but the party ended long before midnight. A once-invincible president was battered and pilloried as a man who didn't know the price of milk – a man who didn't care about the regular folks. That perception accomplished, many in the media took glee in watching the fast talker from Arkansas verbally dance his way into the White House, while the low-key blueblood from Connecticut could never shake the "out of touch" tag. George W. Bush witnessed that media sniper parade first-hand and saw it bring down his father's administration. Mr. Bush must know the same enemy is waiting in the weeds again. Patiently, his foes are polishing generalizations of insensitivity and domestic incompetence. Ready for when the time is right to fire those flaming arrows directly into the Bush courtyard. As the philosopher Rod Serling once said, "There's a sign post up ahead." That sign post may well spell big trouble for President Bush.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (1463)	12/12/2001 10:12:55 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 15516

I don't expect the Bush Administration through the Justice Department or the SEC or the Labor Department to go after Enron or its top executives. Their campaign contributions are like insurance premiums to prevent prosecution.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (1463)	12/13/2001 11:39:28 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

The ties that bind: Bush's political fortunes link back to Enron December 13, 2001 The spectacular collapse of Enron cripples one of President Bush's biggest corporate supporters. By Josh Gerstein, ABC News When the energy-trading firm Enron collapsed recently after disclosing financial irregularities, thousands of employees lost their jobs and investors lost billions. Enron's fall also crippled one of President Bush's most loyal corporate supporters. The Houston-based company was among the first to back Bush when he ran for governor of Texas. Enron and its executives went on to become the largest source of financial support for Bush's gubernatorial campaigns, giving more than $500,000, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity. "Enron was the number one career patron for George W. Bush," said center director Charles Lewis. "There was no company in America closer to George W. Bush than Enron." Lewis says the company's goal in backing Bush and other politicians was to encourage further deregulation of the energy industry. "Enron made a decision that they needed government to go their way and they put the money out to make sure that happened," he said. Loyalty and Access Congressional hearings open this week into Enron's financial implosion, which culminated in a Dec. 2. bankruptcy filing. The Labor Department, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are all investigating Enron. It's unclear to what extent the inquiries are examining the longstanding ties between administration officials and the company, which was once the seventh-largest U.S. corporation in terms of revenue. Enron CEO Kenneth Lay has been a friend of Bush and the Bush family for years. When Gov. Bush ran for president, Enron gave him access to a company jet. (The Bush campaign reimbursed the company roughly $25,000 for the flights.) In April 2000, when Enron opened a new baseball stadium named for the firm, then-candidate Bush sat right in front of Lay in the Enron box. Since 1999, Enron and its executives have given more than $2 million to the Bush campaign and other GOP causes. Democrats got about a quarter of that amount. As Bush assumed the presidency, Enron had unusual access to the new administration's deliberations about energy policy and appointments to important posts. Lay served on the Bush transition team and helped interview candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the gas pipelines and electricity grids that are key to Enron's business. Earlier this year, the commission's chairman, Curtis Hebert, who was being considered for reappointment by the White House, declared himself "offended" by Lay's lobbying efforts. Hebert later quit the panel. When Vice President Dick Cheney drafted a new energy policy, he met with Lay and other Enron executives. Enron was reportedly the only company to be granted such a meeting. Lay declined to be interviewed for this story. Washington Posts Enron alumni also fill prominent slots in the Bush administration. The president's chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, and the top trade negotiator, Robert Zoellick, both served as advisers to the company. Secretary of the Army Thomas White was an Enron executive before joining the administration. When he assumed the Army post, White was forced to sell more than $25 million in Enron stock, according to a financial disclosure form he filed. Rep. Henry Waxman, D.-Calif., has been pressing Cheney to detail his contacts with the troubled company. "There is a very intimate connection between Enron and the Bush administration. How could they not have known what was happening?" Waxman said in an interview last week. "I think we need to find out what people in the administration knew, many of whom used to work for Enron. We ought to find out whether they ignored warning signs." In the past, the White House has resisted requests for information about its dealings with the energy industry. The General Accounting Office, the investigative and auditing arm of Congress, threatened to sue Cheney earlier this year after he declined to turn over documents about his meetings with Enron and others interested in the energy policy he was developing. After the Sept. 11 attacks, GAO said the effort to get Cheney's records was no longer a priority. Despite the administration's numerous ties to Enron, the White House has deflected questions about the company's failure. Reporters who asked White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer about Enron were referred to the Treasury Department. However, Fleischer said last week that Congress has grounds to investigate how Enron fell so far so fast. "It's very understandable why people in Congress... charged with oversight of any implications of Enron's bankruptcy would seek hearings," he said. Reprinted from ABC News: dailynews.yahoo.com 20011212/pl/enron011210_1.html