In the words of Molly Ivins:
If you want to know what this story is about, pretend Bill Clinton is still president. Pretend Clinton’s long-time, all-time biggest campaign contributor, a guy for whom Clinton has carried water for over the years, a guy with unparalleled “access,” a shaper of policy — imagine that this guy’s worldwide empire has tumbled into bankruptcy in just three months amid cascading reports of lies, monumental accounting errors, evasions, iffy financial statements, insider deals, a board of directors rife with conflicts of interest, top executives bailing out with millions while regular employees see their life savings shrink to nothing — imagine all this back in the day of Bill Clinton.
We’d have four congressional investigations, three special prosecutors, two impeachment inquiries and a partridge in a pear tree by now. Republicans would be drumming their heels on the floor in full tantrum.
But this is not President Clinton, it is President Bush — so of course different standards must apply. The fact that Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman, has been Bush’s chief money man since he first went into politics is mentioned only in passing. The media don’t want to be impolite.
Given the billions of dollars involved, the huge impact on the economy by Enron’s fall, and the tangle of ties between Enron and the Bushies — this makes some dubious land deals in Arkansas sound like a the po-dunk contretemps it really was.
The question being, what, if any, impact will this have on the Bush Administration.
(Via Trance Gemini)