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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bonnuss_in_austin who wrote (219906)	1/18/2002 4:40:42 PM
From: Bald Eagle	Respond to of 769670

Thanks, I found out what UFB means and it was my sentiments exactly when I heard that about Enron.

To: bonnuss_in_austin who wrote (219906)	1/18/2002 5:08:21 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

It's all Bill Clinton's fault by Gene Lyons Let's see now, just short of a year into a Republican presidency, and we've got a war, a steep economic recession, a return to budget deficits for as far as the eye can see, and the biggest financial scandal in U.S. history just heating up. Thank heaven it's all Bill Clinton's fault. Every bit of it. Indeed, we at Unsolicited Opinions, Inc. propose a secret Supreme Court tribunal to enact the Blame Apportionment Act of 2001, effective retroactively to the date of the Bush II Restoration. Under its provisions, former President Clinton would assume formal responsibility for every bad thing that happens in or to the United States of America from January 21, 2001 onward, in return for a codicil limiting Republican editorialists to attacking him no more than once a week. Now that our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over, as The Onion put it, it's the least Clinton could do to serve his country. With the former president manfully serving as an all-purpose national scapegoat, everybody in Washington would be off the hook. And we might be spared grotesque items like the recent Democrat-Gazette editorial sneering at Clinton upon the occasion of his dog's death. NEXT TIME YOU HEAR some GOP crybaby bleating about the Washington media's left-wing bias, try this one out on them: Amid the accelerating Enron scandal, George W. Bush did his dim-bulb best to deflect attention. Last Thursday, the president told reporters that his single most generous political benefactor, former Enron CEO Ken Lay, was really somebody else's problem: "He was a supporter of [Texas Democratic Gov.] Ann Richards in my run [against her] in 1994," Bush said "and she named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken, and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy." Not to put to fine a point upon it, but this is a barefaced lie. Or would be if you didn't suspect that Bush's overweening sense of entitlement is such that he honestly can't recall which of Daddy's friends bought him what when. With its online advantage, the mediawhoresonline.com website began correcting the record on Friday. By Saturday, the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle weighed in. Then Salon. True, Lay did donate $12,500 to Ann Richards' campaign in 1994. Except that he, his wife, and Enron execs gave Bush more than $146,000. Last year, Lay told PBS's "Frontline" that he supported Bush in 1994, unanimously confirmed by Texas political operatives. In June 2000, the Enron honcho Bush calls "Kenny Boy" told the New York Times that the two first became friendly in the late 80s when they both raised money for the George H.W. Bush presidential library. They got closer when Lay chaired the host committee for the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. Altogether, Lay steered $650,000 in Bush's direction over the years, more than twice the amount involved in the Whitewater real estate investment of legend and song. For eight years, the press scrutinized every syllable Bill and/or Hillary Clinton spoke about that like Bible scholars poring over the Dead Sea Scrolls-all to no end. So you'd think Bush's big whopper about a man at the center of a corporate flameout involving roughly $90 BILLION, thousands of defrauded employees and stockholders, and rife with evidence political cronyism would get the left-leaning Washington press all hot and bothered. You'd be absolutely wrong. To date, the Washington Post has not seen fit to report it at all (and neither has the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.) The New York Times stuck Bush's falsehood back in the business section, perhaps a reflection of what columnist Paul Krugman says is the disgust of establishment-oriented business reporters at the massive sleaze they've encountered. When the bigfoot newspapers soft-pedal a political story, of course, so do the TV networks. For all intents and purposes, Bush got away clean. bartcop.com