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 pretzelsand Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your biggest regret? Notgetting out more often and seeing the sights around Rock Creek Park? Neveronce visiting the newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buyingyour way to the White House with money from a company that committed thebiggest corporate swindle in American history? I got a feeling you didn'tmiss much by not spending an entire Saturday afternoon assembling a Swedishbookcase -- but you should have known that there was no way you would everfinish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay.
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most popularpresident ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from your fellowAmericans after September 11, and then you had to go and blow it. You justcouldn'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 allthe primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so Kenny gave youhis corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you arrived in each citythat the bird you flew in on was from a billionaire who was secretlyconspiring to give the bird to all his employees and investors? He flew youaround America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor you touched downon tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that you were "going torestore dignity to the White House, the people's house." You said thisstanding in front of an Enron jet! ......
[Cf. http://www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0129.html for the full text.]
From: "Christopher Pelham" To: "Patrick Denker"
> It's so devastatingly obvious, too. Didn't take a lot of digging. So...why> no story in da press? When will the ball get rolling? Is it 'cause we're "at> war"?
On 2/15/02 "patrick denker"
I'm not sure. I've wondered that myself. It may be that there's ultimately no criminal wrongdoing on the part of the administration, although the interest conflicts and influence-peddling are outrageous, execrable and pathetic. But as for the collapse and Who Knew What: a lot depends on exactly WHAT Evans and O'Neill were told when Enron contacted them. I suspect that no one called them to say, "Hey, our criminal book-cooking are going to result in our collapse. Can you help?" We need to know who from Enron made those calls and what they said. If if was more like "we're over-leveraged and we expect a contraction in the market -- cut us some regulatory breaks," then it would have been a fairly typical wheedling call from corprorate America to the Feds, and also unethical to go, in response, either 1) public or 2) to the President. You (as Evans or O'Neill) know the President has gotten $ from Enron; that he's likely to be biased, and tempted to give you advice you'll both regret. Nor would you have have reason to contact the SEC, and it might be unethical to do that too: you must get calls from businesses all the time with sob stories about how they're hurting and need breaks. If you go gossiping to the markets and crash stocks every time this happens, you're in hot water; you're not an accounting firm, haven't researched the company's books and had better be careful about spreading unverified bad financial news. It was Andersen's job to police Enron, and we know what Andersen did, and I hope the shredding, cheating crooks at both companies go to prison and pick up the soap. My point is that the core of Moore's argument about the criminality of the administration's involvement rests on his arson metaphor, and we have to know if that metaphor is in fact legitimately parallel: i.e., if the administration knew that Enron was in trouble because of its criminal book-cooking (as arson is criminal), and not for some unfortunate but legitimate -- and, yes, totally false -- reason.
So the question is, does anyone know the answer to that question? About who from Enron called Evans and O'Neill, and what they said?
----- Original Message ----- From: "patrick denker"
Moore's letter as posted on his site contains links throughout to his sources.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0129.html
Two that answer the question I asked are
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A404672002Jan13.html
and
biz.yahoo.com/fo/020111/0111topnews_1.html
It was Lay who called, and it was about a private credit agency that was threatening to lower its rating on Enron debt, & Lay was asking the Feds to intervene. What whistle were they supposed to blow? The "whistle" is the lowered bond rating, and the Feds said, go ahead -- if you fucked up, take your lumps. The crime wasn't in the crash; it was in the fraudulent inflation. No? p
On 2/15/02 1:44 PM, "patrick denker"
... and today, after Sherron Watkins' testimony, "Kenny Boy" isn't looking like quite as much of a moustache-twirler as he did a few days ago. I actually might feel sorry for him, depending on what more gets revealed. It's looking pretty likely that Skilling handed him a time bomb.
The glowering Fastow. You couldn't dream up a better name for a villian.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher Pelham"
That's just what I was thinking this morning (that maybe Lay was not theringleader, but the boss is still responsible to some degree). But therewere still all of those other Enron people crawling all over theadministration and surely some of them were more in the know earlier.
----- Original Message ----- From: "patrick denker" <pdenker@yahoo.com>
> But there were still all of those other Enron people crawling all over the> administration and surely some of them were more in the know earlier.
Maybe, maybe not. Army Secy Tom White, in today's paper, also came off looking a little bit "dumb and clean"; it was his fellow Enron Energy Services manager Pai who was in bed with Skilling and Fastow, and Pai made out as the #1 $$$ bandit, and is listed as a defendant. White and these other guys in the Admin, remember, left Enron a while back (when?), and, ironically, were then required by law to sell all their (inflated, pre-crash) Enron stock. It's hard for us to know who at Enron knew what when -- other than Fastow and Skilling, who presumably knew all always -- but whistleblower Watkins didn't even start working for Fastow until last June, and alerted Lay in August. At that time, we know other execs knew about it, because she quotes them as calling the Raptor arrangement "crooked." I don't know when all of these "Enron guys" came to the Administration, but it was probably before all this bubbled up inside the company in any significant way.
Frankly, I don't blame White, for example, based on what's known at the moment. The buck may "stop" with the CEO, but the CEO wears a lot of hats -- managerial and political more than financial. Finance and accounting is a very complicated, specialized field, and frankly, you have to rely on your CFO and your accounting firm. It's like having a physician; you might be responsible for your own health, but your responsibility means that you get a physician to operate on you, rather than doing it yourself. If your CFO is a crook, you're in trouble, and if your accounting firm is crooked, you're fucked.
What amazes me is that their law firm fucked up too. Vinson & Elkins looked into Watkins' memo and "concluded" that everything was copasetic. More below.
From: "Dawn Downes"
> I simply don't buy that he didn't have a clue what was going on. > Especially after Sherron Watkins handed him clear evidence that illegal > bookkeeping practices were in use. If Ken Lay really is that incompetent > and naive, how did he come to head the seventh largest company in the US?
Dawn, I suspect you're largely right. I think he found out. Remember that Lay was CEO for only what, 8 months? I'm sure he didn't know about Raptor when he was recruited; in the business community, Enron had a good reputation as a hot, progressive, smart company. I think his dream job turned into a nightmare. I think he realized what was going on in August, when Watkins alerted him. My guess is that he called Fastow in and said: "You bastard, you've built this corporation on sand, and if this gets out, this company and all its employees will be fucked; you need to back us out of this." Blow the whistle? That'd wreck the train. Tell the feds? Fire Fastow? Ditto. I think Lay wanted to deconstruct the debacle quietly, knowing that the company had been dishonest but hoping that he could clean it up quietly, without a train wreck. The stock would fall -- but slowly, giving people a chance to reinvest. In the meantime, keep up appearances. BUT that didn't stop Lay from selling his OWN stock and covering his OWN ass, which I think is cowardly and outrageous. I don't think he did the best he could in a bad situation not of his own making; I think he did somewhat less than the best he could in that sort of situation.
> The only people I feel sorry for are the employees who lost their money
You're right there, and I stand corrected. I was being flip when I said I felt sorry for Lay. And maybe I do, a little, just because he's an individual figure with a story. But I think that you're right that the employees are the innocent victims. Lay might be a somewhat tragic figure -- somewhat -- and tragedy can be interesting.
Lay might well have told Vinson & Elkins "You guys need to give us a clean bill of health." He probably told Andersen the same thing. We know he downplayed Enron's fuckup when he called the Feds for help. But I sympathize with why he lied: I think he wanted a gradual stock drop, rather than a catastrophic collapse. But this is an assumption; what we need to find out now is whether Fastow did in fact start taking steps to deconstruct Raptor after August. Chris?
