Unvarnished Indeed
January 30, 2002
by James May

Did Dick and Dubya really expect to receive "unvarnished" advice on energy policy from Enron? I would hope that they are more intelligent than that. Assuming that they were intelligent enough to recognize they wouldn't (and surely didn't) receive "unvarnished" advice, then why the heck are they trying to convince us that because of executive privilege, they did? Could they perhaps think that we are not intelligent enough to recognize this simple fact?

Now it goes without saying that the administration should seek advice on energy policy on such a large energy corporation. Why however is it so important to deny me the advice that my president is receiving? Why can't I know? Am I too stupid to understand what Dick, Dubya and Kenny Boy (I mean, Mr. Lay) were talking about? If they were having secret conversations knowing that I could never know what they were saying because of executive privilege, then I really want to know now what they discussed!

Perhaps they wish us to believe that executive privilege is needed to protect Enron's comments from falling into the hands of their competitors. What unvarnished and potentially devastating information could Enron have shared with Dick and Dubya that executive privilege would be needed to protect Enron, even now after it's sudden collapse?

Besides, if Enron had such an enormously important and secretive conversation, why would they want to talk to Texas energy guru Dubya? What's more important, if they did trust Dubya that much to have such a discussion, what does that say about how tight the relationship must have been between Kenny Boy and the administration?

There most certainly is something unvarnished going on though. You don't have to be a seasoned politician (luckily for Dubya) to recognize that exercising executive privilege so early on in the investigation is a major mistake. Even in the early stages of Alzheimer's, Reagan had the good sense to stall, and then give a good deal of nothing important to Congress.

I personally wouldn't be surprised to find out in the end that the reason no obvious beneficial links can be found between the administration and Enron, is that the information they wish to protect with executive privilege will show a scenario which may go something like this: The administration probably had big plans to deal Enron a good hand through the new energy policy, but Enron wanted more - needed more - and needed it fast. In fact Kenny Boy probably laid his losing hand on the table for Dick and Dubya and gave them a clear and unvarnished look.

Dick and Dubya got scared of Enron and their fuzzy math accounting, and not only didn't give more, withdrew anything significant from them completely. That would explain why Enron got nothing, and furthermore would explain why Enron fell so suddenly!