1/29/2002
"George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane"
An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael
Moore
Dear George,
When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up
your pretzels and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will
be your biggest regret? Not getting out more often and seeing
the sights around Rock Creek Park? Never once visiting the
newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buying your
way to the White House with money from a company that
committed the biggest corporate swindle in American history? I
got a feeling you didn't miss much by not spending an entire
Saturday afternoon assembling a Swedish bookcase -- but you
should have known that there was no way you would ever
finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay.
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the
most popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good
will from your fellow Americans after September 11, and then
you had to go and blow it. You just couldn't stay away from
your old cowpoke friend from Texas, Kenneth Lay.
Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly
around to all the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000
election -- so Kenny gave you his corporate jet. Did you tell
the voters when you arrived in each city that the bird you flew
in on was from a billionaire who was secretly conspiring to give
the bird to all his employees and investors? He flew you around
America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor you
touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow
citizens that you were "going to restore dignity to the White
House, the people's house." You said this standing in front of
an Enron jet!
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately
referred to him as "Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important
campaign trip in April, 2000, to fly back to Houston for the
Astros opening day at the new Enron Field -- just so you could
watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch. How
sentimental!
I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were
awarded a set of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so
you could live in the White House, you invited Kenny Boy to
set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! He interviewed
those who would hold high-level Energy Department positions
in your administration.
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the
regulatory agency that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick
the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for his accountant, Arthur
Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to
make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from
numerous regulations and would not be held liable for any
"funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this
forward-thinking?).
The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old
buddy, Dick Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got
the big contracts from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the
Gulf War). Lay and Dick formed an "energy task force"
(Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the country's
new "energy policy." This policy then went on to shut down
every light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And guess
who made out like bandits while "trading" the energy California
was in desperate need of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder
Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the files about those special
meetings with Lay!
The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron
henchmen who ended up in your cabinet and administration is
how our lazy media just rolled over and didn't report it. The list
of Enron people on your payroll is impressive. Lawrence
Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A former advisor at
Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of Alcoa,
whose
lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the
your campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm
representing Enron! Who is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas.
Thomas White, the Secretary of the Army? A former vice-chair
of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal Trade
Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your
main man at the White House? He owned a quarter-million
dollars of Enron stock.
Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a
federal judge in Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of
the Republican Party, the two Enron officials who now work for
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the wife of Texas
Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And there's the
aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney
whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets.
George, it never stops! My fingers are getting tired typing all
this up -- and there's lots more.
Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil
man. You don't need any crap from people like me -- heck, you
got mother-in-law problems! Now, I have a very good
relationship with my mother-in-law, but then, I never told her
to put $8,000 of her money into a company my administration
knew was going belly-up.
You say you didn't know? Your bag man -- Don Evans, the man
who squeezed all that money for you from Enron as your
campaign finance chairman (and is now collecting his reward as
your Commerce Secretary) -- has admitted that he got calls
from Enron begging for help last year because they were going
under. Didn't he tell you this?
Then Paul O'Neill, your Treasury Secretary, admitted that
Enron and Kenny Boy called him, too, for some special favors
to save Enron. Didn't he mention this to you? They claim to
have called your chief of staff, Andrew Card, and he said he
didn't bother to inform you. What does your mother-in-law
think about these boys her daughter's husband consorts with?
I love watching the O'Neill and Evans show. What a couple of
cut-ups! They're, like, all proud of themselves for "not doing
Enron any favors." Actually, I think it's more like they didn't do
your MOTHER-IN-LAW any favors. Enron got LOTS of favors.
And why not? Kenny Boy has been your number one financial
backer since you ran for governor. No other American or Saudi
has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at
Enron. O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham -- ALL of them gave Lay and Enron special favors
from day one. The New York Times
last May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of
the place (1600 Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as
the "shadow advisor to the president."
And what advice! Who was it that wanted you to deregulate
the energy industry further? Kenny Boy! Who was it that
convinced you to explore the sick idea of PRIVATIZING our
water supply and then allow private corporations to "trade" it
in the future? Kenny Boy! Who was it that wanted Social
Security to be tied to the stock market? Yup, Kenny Boy!
(Imagine, if you will, what would have happened to our
precious Social Security funds had they been invested in Enron
stocks as you, George, suggested be done during your
campaign as yuppies everywhere clucked along in agreement
over that genius idea.)
O'Neill's and Evans's admission that they "did nothing" when
Enron told them of the company's shell game and impending
collapse is reason enough for you and yours to hit the Beltway
and never return to that sacred trust we call Our American
Government. They are proud of "doing nothing?" By doing
nothing, millions of Americans have been swindled. Tens of
thousands have lost their jobs. Thousands more have lost their
savings and their retirement. Yet your cabinet secretaries
gloat over what a "good job" you and they did by "doing
nothing."
Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire,
and they called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no
you wouldn't help them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911
and inform the police that someone was going to burn down a
house, do you think you would have committed a crime?
Of course you would have! You had prior knowledge and then
you knowingly and purposefully HID this information from the
authorities and the people living in the house! You only
admitted that you knew a house was going to be torched
when you were confronted by the police. Are you complicit?
Yes! Are you an accessory? Yes! Who would even think of
going around boasting, "Hey, look what a great guy I am -- a
friend of mine told me he was going to commit an act of arson,
and then I decided NOT to tell ANYONE about it!!
WHOO-HOO!!"
Enron and Kenny Boy bought your silence and the silence of
your cabinet members. You yourself didn't have to actually raid
the 401(k) accounts of those poor people in Houston (many of
whom probably voted for you every time your name was on a
ballot). All you had to do was remain silent, change the
government regulations that let them get away with it, and
install their hand-picked cronies to sit on the "oversight"
boards which were supposed to be keeping an eye on them.
While doing all this, you told the American people that these
rich friends of yours were not getting any special breaks --
when, in fact, Enron had already scammed their way out of
paying NO taxes in four out of the last five years. Your
economic "stimulus" bill that you got the House to pass after
9-11 had a section that would give Enron a gift of $250 million
of our tax money. You were pushing this bill in November and
December, long after your administration knew that Enron was
raiding the vault and screwing its workers and investors.
You and your Republican friends are quick to point out that
Enron had their claws into the Democrats as well. Yes, they
did, and thank you for making the case why we not only need
an alternative to the current make-up of the Democratic Party,
we need private money removed from our electoral process
ASAP.
But, George, let's be real -- the Democrats only got a pittance
from Enron compared to the millions you and the Republicans
received. Democrats just don't have the killer instinct to do
anything right, and they certainly don't know much about
making money the old-fashioned way, one off-shore tax shelter
at a time. I would expect nothing less from a Party that
couldn't even put their candidate in the White House after he
had already won the election.
The Democrats are like a Yugo -- you know it won't last long
or work well, but it will occasionally get the job done. Fat cats
know they can buy the Democrats at discount prices, and so
they do. Anyone who tries to deflect this scandal away from
you, George, or away from the Republicans, or away from the
whole dirty way we elect our leaders, is someone who is
desperately trying to cling to what's left of a very crooked
system that has to go and go now.
The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal
was revealed -- and you denied that you even knew your good
friend, Kenneth Lay. "Ken who?" you said. Oh, he's just some
businessman from Texas. "Heck, he backed my opponent for
governor, Ann Richards!" was your way of trying to deflect the
truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You knew that
he, in fact, endorsed YOU and gave you THREE times the
money Ann Richards ever saw from him.
I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter
outside the walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the
Garden of Gethsemane. Three times he denied he knew Jesus,
and three times the cock crowed. But Peter, unlike you, felt
shame and wept, and then ran away.
What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have
told? What shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a
cover for your actions, hoping that our sorrow for those lost
souls and our fear of being killed by terrorists would distract us
from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up to during those
horrific weeks in September and October?
It was during those very days, while the rest of us were in
shock and sadness, that the executives at Enron were selling
off their stock and shifting assets to their 900 phony
partnerships overseas. Did they notice the remains of the dead
being pulled from the rubble while they were downloading their
millions, or were their eyes glued only to the bottom third of
the TV screen as the stock ticker with the rigged Enron price
crawled across the images of firemen desperate, in tears, to
find their fallen brothers?
The country was behind you when you said you were fighting
the evildoers who did this. In fact, all the while, the real fight
your friends at Enron were conducting was the fight against
the clock, to see how fast they could transfer all the loot to
their personal accounts and run away. Those were the
evildoers, George, and you knew it. And because you, by
design or negligence, allowed this to happen, it is time for you
to resign. The cock has crowed for the last time.
At the very least, your mother-in-law deserves better.
Yours,
Michael Moore
American
Son-in-Law
Owner of 7th LARGEST COMPANY IN AMERICA! (revised ranking)
mmflint@aol.com
michaelmoore.com |
