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The
Enron Fall Guy Tape
January
16, 2002
by birdman
It was near midnight when I entered the dark, nearly empty
parking garage. It was there I was to meet my friend, whom
I will simply call "Big Jugs" due to the fact that she has
a politically sensitive job in the White House. A dedicated
and principled civil servant, she had promised to keep me
apprised of any scandalous shenanigans in the Bush administration.
After 15 minutes I thought she might not show but then from
behind me I heard her trademark stiletto heels and the words,
"birdman, are you sure you weren't followed?"
"I changed cabs four times like you said. Good to see you
B.J."
"Stop calling me that. I have a tape for you. I think your
friends at DU will find this interesting. It's about Enron."
"They're worried about Enron?"
"Scared shitless."
"You read DU?"
"I read DU; I read the Freepers; I read Drudge. I'm a non-partisan
dedicated, principled civil servant, remember. Listen to the
tape; it's good stuff, and stop staring at my tits. You goddamn
Democrats are all the same. Christ, Clinton practically drooled
on them for 8 years!"
I forced myself to look away from B.J.'s most impressive
feature and when I turned back she was gone as quickly as
she had arrived.
It was after two when I got home but I just had to play B.J.'s
tape. It was a bit scratchy but I could make out the voices
of Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. They were talking on and on
about Enron. The scandal was getting out of control. The press
is circling like buzzards. Finally they decided they needed
a fall guy.
Rove: I have a hunch we can get away with asking junior to
go out and give a pompous speech about "appearances of impropriety,"
you know, that kind of thing, accept the resignation of a
couple of our lower level EPA and Justice types who had Enron
stock and declare the thing over with.
Hughes: Karl, your last hunch was coming up with the term
"evildoers" and junior sputtered it all over the TV for weeks
and now we have explain why the head of the evildoers got
away. This has already gotten too big for the impropriety
speech. O'Neill, we give them O'Neill.
Rove: Not bad. We were looking for a way to get rid of him
anyway. He let Russert carve him a new one on "Meet the Press"
last week. But he didn't even have any stock. The fall guy
has to have had some Enron stock or a boatload of campaign
contributions.
Hughes: You had stock.
Rove: Shut up, Karen.
Hughes : Rummy had stock.
Rove: Rummy won't take one for team. He thinks he's a goddamn
TV star now that he's doing those press briefings.
Hughes: How about we give them the Holy Roller?
Rove : Taliban John? It's got possibilities. We never wanted
the damn doofus to begin with and the guys at Justice would
love us for getting them out from under those damn prayer
meetings he holds every morning and the press is making him
into J. Edgar Hoover without the dress.
Hughes: And it's not like he isn't up to his Crisco oil soaked
ass in Enron money from his last campaign.
Rove: I know and he still couldn't beat the dead guy. But
he was our payoff to the the troglodytes, sack the Taliban
man and we'd have to come up with another AG that would appease
the Hezbollah and get through the Senate. You want to try
to thread that needle again?
Hughes: Flatline.
Rove: Cheney? You've got to be kidding.
Hughes: Look, Karl. We've already got Uncle Dick stashed
away on a respirator four days a week. He's one plate of eggs
benedict away from turning purple for the last time as it
is. It wasn't our fault that he held those stupid task force
meetings and then stonewalled for months on who was there.
Last week we had to finally admit that Enron was in there.
Tell me again how we can't do without him.
Rove: It doesn?t matter. Junior's father loves the guy. He
thinks Uncle Dick is watching over his little boy. I swear
when he finally has the big one we're gonna have to have him
stuffed and give the damn carcass an office in the West wing.
Where are you going?
Hughes: I'm going to order pizza. This is going to take a
while.
With that B.J.'s tape ran out. It was three in the morning
and I was angry and frustrated that I wasn't going to find
out who the fall guy was. But one thing was dead certain.
Somebody in the White House was going down - and this time
their name wasn't going to be Monica.
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