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George
W. Bush's Intimate Affair with a Missing... Corporation
January
11, 2002
by Ted Westervelt
After forging an intimate relationship with millions of dollars
of campaign contributions with George W. Bush for the better
part of a decade, Houston based mega-billion dollar energy
trading company Enron is vanishing without a trace. So are
billions of dollars from individual pension and retirement
funds nationwide. Soon the last obvious vestiges of this formerly
tight relationship will be the former Enron execs peppering
the Bush Administration.
Recent information from the Vice President's office shows
the dying corporation apparently played a vital role in the
Bush Administration all the way through to its final days,
and kept up an active political front until the final hours.
Can anyone tell us why?
One thing is certainly clear for all to see. Energy trader
Enron's rise to mega-billion dollar prominence eerily mirrors
George W. Bush's rise to national political power. And it's
no random coincidence. Not only did the political arms of
the company and generous executives easily make Enron Bush's
top supporter in his 2000 Presidential bid, estimates of their
financial support for Bush campaigns since his first run for
governor of Texas run well into the tens of millions of dollars.
If Bush supported initiatives for the national Republican
party and Texas Republican party are included, this figure
could easily climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Why then, as Enron's favorite long term investment reached
the promised land of the Presidency of the United States,
was the company less than 12 months from seeking federal bankruptcy
protection? Indeed, why was the company consulting with Vice
President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force on national energy
policy within a few weeks of being unable to pay their own
bills?
Even as Enron was beginning the long rotation to a belly
up position, the company was still playing politics at a frenzied
pace. Indeed, contributions totaling in the hundreds of thousands
of dollars to candidates of both major parties were made from
the Enron PAC alone over the last calendar year - practically
up until their last days as a viable business. And despite
a last minute flurry of contributions to many Democrats, the
grand sums contributed to Bush and his causes still tower
over them by exponential margins.
Could Enron have been looking for cover from the President
of the United States during it's final desperate acts of gluttony
and golden parachutes - like the last minute $300,000,000.00
in severance packages that top Enron execs doled out to themselves
in the closing days?
Could it be the pending investigation on the accounting practices
that led to the glowing financial reports that turned Wall
Street into a gushing well of support, and opened the investor
floodgates from day traders to managers of otherwise conservative
pension funds?
Could it be ongoing grumbling about Enron's role in the California
"Energy Crisis"?
Whatever the story is, let's hope that there are those brave
enough to tell it. When a corporation with such an intimate
connection to a standing President slips beneath the waves,
and billions of dollars in our retirement accounts nationwide
are caught up in the suction, the highest rated news show
in the country will be the first to tell us why.
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