How can we pin this on Bush? Short answer: You can't
Mark Steyn
National Post
Some readers may recall the first appearance in this space by Enron, the world's biggest energy trader. It was during last summer's California blackouts, when I was struck by the state's innovative attempt to pin the whole thing on the company's chief executive, Ken Lay. "I would love," said Bill Lockyer, California's Attorney-General, "to personally escort Lay to an 8x10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.' "
Fortunately for Mr. Lay, he lived not in California but in Texas, beyond the reach of Mr. Lockyer's summary cell-share program. And, as Enron itself has now short-circuited, in the largest bankruptcy in history, Lockyer and his fellow Democrats have moved on. These days, they and their media chums are positively salivating at the prospect of using Enron to do to the Bush Administration what the State of California wanted Spike to do to Mr. Lay. On Friday on CNN, in the corner of the screen where of late "AMERICA FIGHTS BACK" has been emblazoned, there loomed instead the dread suffix: "ENRONGATE." The New York Times has lapsed into its lethal passive voice: "Questions were being raised ..."
The only "question" really being "raised" is: How can we pin this on Bush?
Short answer: You can't.
Enron is a sleazefest with significant fiduciary issues for company officers, for their document-shredding auditors at Arthur Andersen and for the Accounting Lobby -- Big Ledgers -- in general. But, for those who want to turn a business scandal into a Beltway one, Ken Lay is supposedly not just the latest "unacceptable face of capitalism" but the unacceptable face of Bush capitalism -- of a particular Texan energy-industry backslapping wildcatting business culture. The argument is that Lay has been writing cheques to Dubya's political campaigns since he first ran for dogcatcher, and that in return he's been rewarded with "access." Thus the headline in Friday's Washington Post: "Enron Asked For Help From Cabinet Officials. CEO Sought Intervention Before Bankruptcy."
Hmm. I must fish out The Washington Post of November 23rd, 1963: "President Makes Visit To Dallas. JFK Well-Received By Most Texans." The real news in the story is not Lay's phone calls but the officials' response: When Dubya's buddy tried to call in his chits, the Bush guys were unmoved. The headline should have read: "Cabinet Officials Declined To Help Enron. CEO Told, 'Awfully Sorry To Hear About All These Problems, Ken. Look, I Gotta Run, But Let's Get Together And Do Lunch Sometime Next Year.' "
Democrats took this news in their stride, switching in mid-soundbite from vague accusations of "special favours" to angry denunciations about the lack of special favours: Why had the Administration done nothing to help this struggling company out of its difficulties? Already you could sense the "rapidly exploding" scandal misfiring.
Meanwhile, Attorney-General John Ashcroft has recused himself from the Justice Department criminal investigation into Enron on the grounds that he too has been the recipient of their largesse. Ah-ha, said the media, practically drooling. But, in fact, Ashcroft's move is brilliant: At a stroke, it sets the bar at a height the Democrats can't rise to. After all, in terms of their political investments, Enron had a widely diversified portfolio: 71 of America's 100 Senators got cheques from the company, among them half the Democratic caucus, including Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. In the House, the Representative who received the most Enron money is a Democrat, and a black liberal female one at that: Sheila Jackson Lee. If Senators and Representatives are as punctilious about conflict of interest as the Attorney-General, there'll barely be enough of them to man the Congressional hearings.
In other words, if this is "another Whitewater," it's a bipartisan one: In Monica terms, it's as if, in between oral sex with the president, she was squeezing in bondage sessions with Newt Gingrich and rounding out the day lap dancing with Strom Thurmond.
And it only gets better: Insofar as anybody did special favours for Ken Lay, it wasn't Bush but the Clinton Administration, which "cajoled" the Indian government into giving the company the contract for a Bombay power plant over rival British firms and lavished over $4-billion in federal funds on Enron for various projects. The political component of the scandal is that, throughout the Nineties, Enron was a classic beneficiary of the Euro-Canadianized version of "managed capitalism" -- Third Way dirigisme -- operated by Bill Clinton's Commerce Department.
A campaign finance scandal? Hardly. John McCain, the media darling and campaign-finance obsessive who never lets up about the corrupting influence of money in politics, must be utterly bewildered: Compared to Bush, the Clinton-Gore campaign got peanuts but was almost embarrassingly accommodating.
But Bush? Ken Lay gives half a mil to his Texas buddy and what does he have to show for it? Nothing, except investigations by the Justice Department, Commerce Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and eight Congressional committees. Right now, 30 days with Spike would be a pretty good plea bargain.
WEATHER UPDATE: After last week's column on the "brutal Afghan winter," I received several responses from readers complaining that my Fahrenheit readings were incomprehensible to "those of us under 40." I have two things to say: First, lay off the age cracks. Fahrenheitism isn't an age thing, it's a political statement. This is the National Post, for Pete's sake. If you want Celsius, stick with the pantywaist leftie weather reports at the CBC. However, as a service to victims of Trudeaupian units of measurement, here are my previous column's temperature readings rendered into newfangled Centigrade: 13, 13, 17, 14, 18, 13, 12, 21, -6, -15, -10, -2, 3, 8, 7, 6, -26, 2. The bonus number is 29. Employees of the National Post are ineligible. Proof of residency is required.
ASPER ALERT: Over the weekend, in a column on the owners of this newspaper and their malign impact on the Canadian media, The Toronto Sun's Peter Worthington accused me of being "reticent" on the subject -- the subject being the introduction of sinister once-a-week "national editorials" written in Winnipeg by editor-in-chief Murdoch Davis for publication in all papers.
I take great umbrage at the accusation. Sure, everybody's beating up on David Asper these days, but once again yours truly was ahead of the curve -- see my column of March 8th last year. Let me tell you, biting the hand that feeds you was a lonely job back then: I glanced over my shoulder expecting to see all those Montreal Gazette dissidents charging to join in, only to find they were back in the bar still toasting Conrad's departure. As for Murdoch Davis, our paths have crossed only once and, on the basis of that, if I spotted him in the mirror walking behind my car as I was backing out of the National Post parking lot, it would require enormous strength of will not to slam my foot on the gas.
That said, I find it hard to get worked up over "national editorials." They might be a good idea, they might turn out a lousy one, but I don't see that they're objectionable per se. One of Southam's problems is that it's a national newspaper group with little or no national identity, starting with that hokey logo that looks like a 'tween-wars life insurance company. You can't blame David Asper for wanting to correct that. You can blame him for reciting REM lyrics from the Eighties to an audience of baffled Rotarians as he did at lunch the other day (at least Izzy likes Gershwin).
As for me, I'd remind disgruntled Southamites that my offer of $5,000 (Canadian, not Fahrenheit) still stands, for the Lawrence Martin Memorial Prize for the best column in a Southam paper on the threat of concentrated media ownership to freedom of expression. (See my column of August 13th, 2001, for full details). I'm a sporting fellow and I'll happily open it up to Southam pieces allegedly "spiked" by head office -- such as Halifax Daily News columnist Stephanie Domet's spiked column about the spiked column of Stephen Kimber complaining that a previous column had been spiked. So far, though, this genre has been virtually unreadable. Asper bashing has minimum standards.
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