Let the Democrats Investigate Enron; Timothy Noah, Slate's Funny Uncle

Let the Democrats Investigate

It's only politics, and almost everyone inside the Beltway loves it.

Reporters and pundits, weary from studying the rudiments of military jargon and consulting maps of the world to describe the war on terrorism, now gleefully embark on a subject most are equally ignorant about: finance. No matter, Enron?and its executives?was a generous contributor to Bush's gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, and that's all that counts. I suspect that once the myriad congressional investigations are completed (and you can bet they'll drag on till November) there will be at least one or two sacrificial lambs from the Bush administration who'll be out of a job.

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who knows he won't snare Bush himself, would cream in his pressed jeans if Commerce Secretary Don Evans or Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were forced to walk the plank, but that appears unlikely. Both received calls from Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay for intervention into the company's inevitable demise, but they refused. His Excellency Robert Rubin, one of the few Clinton Cabinet members who emerged unscathed from that Harding-like administration (no offense to Warren G.), has fallen a notch from the media pantheon for his own call to Peter Fisher, treasury undersecretary, last fall. Rubin, now a bigwig at Citigroup, one of Enron's chief creditors, sought help from the current administration but was rebuffed.

In fact, the Bush team's refusal to help Enron is a solid argument against campaign finance "reform," an example of powerful GOP officials refusing to allow several million dollars of contributions to influence monetary decisions, but don't expect that point to be made in the press. What did Enron receive for its spreading around of campaign loot? The back of President Bush's hand.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, naturally, is a target, because he received $57,499 from Enron for his failed Senate reelection bid in Missouri in 2000 (the loss invariably described as one to a "dead man," referring to Mel Carnahan, who was killed just weeks before the tightly contested contest). Ashcroft, unlike his notoriously corrupt predecessor Janet Reno, recused himself from prosecuting the Enron case. That was a proper call?and one not matched by many Democrats who sit on Enron-related investigations and who also received funds from the company, like Sens. Joe Lieberman ($10,000 for the New Democrat Network he founded) and Jeff Bingaman ($14,124)?but he's being pilloried in the media just the same. That's what happens when you're a Confederate sympathizer and leader of America's Taliban Right-Wing, as Democrat consultants irresponsibly label Republican-leaning Christians.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also collected $21,933 from Enron, but he told CNN's Late Edition on Sunday that that won't have any effect on his work in ferreting out the company's bad guys. (And obviously, the accounting firm Arthur Andersen is in scalding hot water.) Referring to a bill Enron supported two years ago that opposed government regulation of commodities markets, Schumer said, rather grandly: "I led the charge against them. So, I think there's proof positive that when they're wrong, I'm going to oppose them rather dramatically."

(A brief digression. Except for The New York Times, which for some reason has a messianic interest in seeing Sen. Robert Torricelli indicted, other newspapers have made little noise about Sen. Harry Reid, who contributed a small amount of cash to Torricelli's legal defense fund, not recusing himself from the Senate ethics inquiry into the Jersey pol's conduct during his '96 election.

(The Times, disgusted by outgoing U.S. prosecutor Mary Jo White's action to green-light The Torch, editorialized on Jan. 5: "Ms. White's decision has punted the matter to the bipartisan Senate ethics panel. Judging by the preliminary noises from Capitol Hill, the committee can be expected to be even more reluctant than usual to take action against one of its own, especially while Mr. Torricelli campaigns for re-election and the Democrats are struggling to hold their single-seat Senate majority. But the allegations against Mr. Torricelli are serious and cry out for prompt investigation and resolution in a manner worthy of public respect. If the committee will not provide it, it might as well disband."

(I'm still of the opinion that the Times' jihad against Torricelli, who's just as sleazy as former Sen. Al D'Amato, is based on his flashy wardrobe and dating habits. Unlike other Americans of Italian descent, Torricelli hasn't played by Times rules: tamp down the ethnicity, wear banker's clothing and keep your mouth shut. No skin off my nose?I can't wait for the paper to endorse his GOP rival this fall?but it's just plain weird.)

Reporters are all over the map in describing the extent of Lay's and Enron's role in Bush's presidential bid. Some give the impression that the now-disgraced company was the President's sole donor; in reality, Enron's $500,000 or so represents a tiny fraction of the approximately $100 million Bush raised for his campaign. Also lost in the shuffle is the fact that a Texas-based enterprise would donate heavily to its home-state governor; just as Texan Democrats Ken Bentsen (currently running for Phil Gramm's seat in the Senate) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee received $42,750 and $38,000, respectively, from Enron. And although approximately 75 percent of Enron's political money went to Republicans, Democrats like Bill Clinton (who golfed with Lay), former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, Tom Daschle, Rep. John Dingell, Florida Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson and Al Gore were also financial recipients.

In addition, as David Brooks writes in this week's Weekly Standard: "On July 5, 1995 Enron Corporation donated $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Six days later, Enron executives were on a trade mission with Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor to Bosnia and Croatia. With Kantor's support, Enron signed a $100 million contract to build a 150-megawatt power plant." Needless to say, the late Ron Brown, Kantor's predecessor, was cozy with Enron as well, as Brooks' article points out. In addition, Mack McLarty, Clinton's onetime chief of staff, who helped the company win a $3 billion power-plant loan in India in the mid-90s, later became a paid adviser to Enron.

I have no idea about the extent of political damage?if any?Bush will suffer in the coming year over the Enron meltdown, and it's imperative that his administration continue to break from Bill and Hillary Clinton's precedent of stonewalling and provide as much information as possible. Which means Dick Cheney ought to loosen his tie and immediately describe the context of his six meetings with Enron officials last spring. But despite the exaggerated hype in the media?the invocations of Watergate, Teapot Dome, Whitewater, Iran-Contra, etc.?it seems doubtful Bush will be hurt, except by stoking Democratic demagogues (like millionaires and wine connoisseurs Bob Shrum and James Carville), who will insist this proves the President is for the fatcats and not the little guy.

The little guy who gets screwed by his or her on-the-take union leaders.

The little kid who's denied the opportunity for a decent education because Democrats are beholden to a bloated (and vote-rich) bureaucracy.

The little guy who's routinely ridiculed by the effete entertainment industry (which gives money almost exclusively to Democrats) even though he's the one who buys movie tickets, CDs and concert tickets.

The little guy who's the victim of reverse discrimination, whether it involves admission to college or employment.

Mike Allen, in last Friday's Washington Post, provided a typical media hypothesis. He wrote: "As midterm elections approach, the investigations might keep a long, intense focus on a topic that Democrats see as a key GOP weakness: the perception by many voters that the Bush administration gives special access and help to wealthy people and big corporations. The probes, likely to include televised congressional hearings, will provide a backdrop for the debates over cuts in federal programs that could follow the disappearance of the budget surplus?which Democrats blame at least partly on the huge tax cut that Bush championed. 'When you have George Bush, Enron, bankruptcy, Texas and campaign contributions all mixed together, it's a huge political problem for this administration,' said Democratic Party spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri. 'Attorney General [John D.] Ashcroft's decision [to recuse himself] shows just how spooked they are.'"

Allen doesn't tackle this uncomplicated thought: If Bush favored only wealthy Americans, how is it that in the 2000 election he swept the country's Southern states, which, unlike New York and California, aren't known for their propensity toward millionaires?

The Weekly Standard's Jan. 21 issue features an Allen parody, which in part reads: "California congressman Henry Waxman announced today that he has decided not to let the absence of any Bush administration wrong-doing stop him from going into a foaming at the mouth rage over the Enron Scandal. 'This scandal is too important and too much fun to call off simply because the Bush administration behaved correctly,' he added.

"At Waxman's signal the entire Washington scandal network, which lies dormant while waiting for such moments, was placed on full Defcon 5 status. Congressional investigations were announced. David Boies and Robert Bennett were called into action. New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth was unleashed... Political reporters, cast into the shadows by the war, were put into a state of full arousal?exuding enough musk-odored body fumes to kill germs within a 25-mile radius."

But I do know this about Bush: he's a decent man, unencumbered by a lust for historical legacy or movie starlets; a person born into an affluent, loving family who doesn't need to prove he's the Top Gun in every Cabinet meeting. The moral clarity that Bush has consistently demonstrated, even before Sept. 11, but certainly dramatically hardened by that day's events, is in stark contrast to Clinton, Al Gore and most of the White House press corps. Because he has a rigid vision of right and wrong he's branded a simpleton; because he speaks in a language that's familiar to most of the country, dropping g's from words for example, he's judged an intellectual failure. (Funny how Bob Dylan, who affected that very accent, even writing lyrics dropping those "g's," is considered an artistic genius by Bush-bashers in New York, Boston, DC, and Los Angeles.)

And because Bush doesn't merely use the Bible as a prop, he, too, is trashed as part of the American Taliban.

Slate's Funny Uncle

After almost 14 years of publishing New York Press, my skin is rather thick; growing up in a family of five boys, with all the good-natured razzing and competition that entailed, steeled me for the insults of lesser mortals. As the paper's "Mail" section documents, week after week, my column is often the subject of rude commentary. Fair is fair, I reason; let the readers have their say.

What I don't care for is inaccuracy.

Writing on Jan. 9 in Slate, Timothy Noah described New York Press as "a seedy right-wing shopper." That's certainly not true, as my colleagues John Strausbaugh, Alex Cockburn, Mike Signorile, Alan Cabal, Lisa Kearns, C.J. Sullivan, among others who don't share my economically conservative views, would say if they didn't simply ignore the muddled thinking of a journalistic never-was like Noah.

I wouldn't call the march-in-step, mushy-liberal Slate "seedy" (although its competitor Salon fits that label), but as its content is free I guess "shopper" would apply?but for the fact that the online journal has never turned a profit, and doesn't need to since it's subsidized by Microsoft.

What rankles me is Noah's glaring lack of ethics. He makes the slur (as a throwaway in reviewing my friend Toby Young's new book) without letting readers know that he's been the frequent target of attacks and critiques from this columnist. Noah, one of those fellows who attended "a school near Boston," hasn't amounted to much in his profession: he's bounced around from job to job (The Washington Monthly, Washington City Paper, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report and finally Slate, where he marks time by writing an inconsequential column called "Chatterbox"). Noah's a bitter middle-aged man who must've had a rough ride at the Journal, considering his bilious and nonsensical rants about that paper's editorial pages, singling out the legendary Robert Bartley and Dorothy Rabinowitz for particular scorn.

At Slate?which is a reincarnation of editor Michael Kinsley's 1980s rendition of The New Republic, a publication that he boasted hired no factcheckers?Noah plays the role of the utility infielder (no bat, so-so glove), say a geriatric Clay Bellinger. In other words, a charity case, a Harvard alum gone to seed (so to speak), tossed a bone by his elite, save-the-world buddies.

If This is McCarthyism...

(A shorter version of this item appeared on Jan. 10 on the "Daily Billboard" at [nypress.com].)

It's too much to ask, I know, that the media stop whining about the Bush administration's alleged draconian curtailment of free speech in the United States today, but at the least reporters and pundits might benefit from a crash course in American history.

Last Sunday, Jan. 13, PBS's American Experience aired the second part of its examination of Woodrow Wilson's presidency, an excellent documentary that puts the current wartime conditions in perspective. FDR's misguided internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II has been the subject of much discussion, although because it's FDR commentators go relatively easy on him. Wilson's extreme abridgment of the First Amendment during World War I, however, which included the shameful imprisonment of Eugene Debs, has been given short shrift. As documented in American Experience, Wilson, addled by a degenerative disease and his unflinching sense of right and wrong, targeted newspapers and protesters who dared to criticize his foreign policy.

No such muzzle on dissent is evident today, despite hysterical cries from the left about John Ashcroft's supposed revival of McCarthyism.

In Wilson's vendetta against the media, surely The New York Times' woe-is-us criticism of the current war would've resulted in arrests. But fortunately, no such administration campaign is under way, proving that President Bush and his Cabinet have a proper reverence for the First Amendment, no matter how distorted the front-page stories in the country's elite newspapers are.

In the Jan. 10 Times, reporter David Sanger, writing a "news analysis" piece, demonstrates just how skewed (what, is this an election year?) that paper's take on the war actually is.

His lede: "America's goals in Central Asia were easily explained as Kabul and Kandahar fell, when daily Pentagon videos showed bombs homing in on caves in Tora Bora and when there was a reasonable prospect that Osama bin Laden, Mullah Muhammad Omar and their top aides would soon fall into American hands.

"But that was last month. And while President Bush was taking a New Year's break on his ranch, and then returned [to Washington] to focus on the economy and education, his war against terrorism entered a murkier, messier moment."

Later in the hitjob, Sanger continues: "'We're in a dangerous phase,' the president volunteered on Saturday during a swing through the West Coast. He was speaking of the cave-to-cave searches in Afghanistan and the death on Friday of Sgt. First Class Nathan R. Chapman, of the Army Special Forces, killed in a firefight that now appears to have been an ambush. But he could just as easily have been talking about everything else that has cropped up while he was cutting new trails across his 1,600-acre ranch."

There are no new low bars of blatant partisanship for the Times to achieve, but Sanger's piece is truly repugnant.

What doesn't he understand about Bush and Rumsfeld's comments?from Sept. 11 until now?that the war will not be short and casualty-free? The administration has constantly warned the nation that the battle against terrorism will take perhaps years to reach a satisfactory conclusion. And you'd have to ask Times Executive Editor Howell Raines why his newspaper permits Sanger to write about Bush, "his [italics mine] war against terrorism," as if it's an act of petty pique on the President's part, say like Rudy Giuliani's aborted crackdown on jaywalkers.

Equally inaccurate is Sanger's silly assertion that Bush is somehow disengaged from the war. Readers are led to believe that while the expected difficulties ensued in Afghanistan, Bush was oblivious, "cutting new trails across his 1,600-acre ranch."

Back in 1917, Sanger and his employers would be jailbirds. That policy indelibly stained Woodrow Wilson's presidential record?as did his embrace of segregation?but while it's unclear whether the Bush administration's ambitious war efforts will be successful, the charge of suppression of dissent is simply ludicrous.

The Times' Don Van Natta Jr., one of the paper's squadron of scandal reporters, is too painful to read thoroughly, but I did find it appalling that his Jan. 11 story was so one-sided on behalf of Rep. Henry Waxman that he waited until the last three paragraphs of the piece to reveal a significant detail. That would be that David Boies (Gore's lead recount lawyer) and Robert Bennett (Clinton's lead Paula Jones lawyer) are now representing Enron and some of its officers before Congress.

Robert Scheer might've been sent to San Quentin under Wilson's regime. Consider his take-me-to-the-funny-farm comments in a Jan. 8 Los Angeles Times op-ed piece. He wrote: "It is Bush and not Osama bin Laden who is responsible for subverting the fiscally conservative policies of the Clinton years. [Naturally, Scheer doesn't fess up that Clinton's belt-tightening was forced upon him by the GOP-controlled Congress that took power after the '94 elections, which mitigated his dumb tax hike in '93.] A true conservative would say that 'over my dead body' would the government siphon the surplus created by Social Security taxes to the pockets of the rich, putting the nation further into the red.

"Bush may be the hero of the moment but it won't be so when future generations try to collect their Social Security checks. If Bush keeps it up he will be remembered as another Herbert Hoover, a president who let the unemployment lines grow while the government went broke catering to the wealthy."

Does any sane person really think the government will literally go broke?

 

Jan. 14

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