February 07, 2002

Enron - Nothing By Liberal Standards

Senator Ernest F. Hollings (D,SC), once thought to be an honest man, has called for a special prosecutor to investigate what he alleges was a “cash-and-carry government” run by the Bush administration for Enron, the failed energy company.

Senator Hollings has confused the Bush administration with the Clinton Administration. It was during the Clintons’ reign that Enron executives flew on U.S. trade missions on government planes with the Secretary of Commerce. It was the Clinton administration that helped Enron pry open India for a multibillion dollar project.

It was Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe who pocketed $18 million on a $100,000 investment in Global Crossing, the fourth largest bankruptcy in history. It was the New York Times’ Republican-hating columnist, Paul Krugman, who sat on Enron’s Advisory Board. It was the Democrats’ attack dog Jesse Jackson who received Enron dollars. There are public records listing the numerous connection between Democrats and Enron.

Enron failed early in Bush’s administration. The mistakes and shenanigans that brought down the company occurred during the Clinton Administration. The cooked books happened before President Bush was elected.

But facts don’t matter to a news media that serves as the propaganda arm for the Democratic Party. True to form, the Washington Post on January 24 gave an entire page to a “primer” on Enron. Under the section “Political Interactions,” the propaganda organ listed only Republicans.

The Washington Post is widely regarded as a partisan newspaper. But “partisan” is an euphemism; the word implies that the Post favors Democrats but retains an independent judgment. There is no independent judgment in a newspaper which appears to be run from the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

The same thing can be said for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Time magazine and Newsweek.

Columnist and former government official Bruce Bartlett noted recently that it is not possible to debate issues when Democrats don’t respect facts. It is impossible to debate with demagogues.

The Democrats’ “issues” are based in statistics that are even phonier than Enron’s accounting. Social Security is a worse Ponzi scheme than Enron’s partnerships, and Social Security’s collapse will do far more damage to retirees than Enron’s collapse.

Static revenue estimates, which Democrats use to block tax cuts, are fabrications. An honest press wouldn’t stand for them.

The Democrats’ gun control issue is entirely based in cooked numbers. When Senator Charles Schumer (D, NY) wrings his hands over “the large number of children killed in gun accidents,” he is including in his numbers all the under-21 members of drug gangs intentionally killed in fights over drug turf.

Enron’s deception is a drop in the bucket. The media should be demanding that government agencies and politicians be held accountable when they cook the books.

This will not happen. The media are the operating arm of the Democratic Party, and the phony statistics are the means of selling bogus policies to the public, whose gullibility seems to know no bounds.

Don’t be surprised if the Washington Post finds another “Deep Throat” to rat on the Bush administration. For those too young to remember President Richard Nixon or those so old they have forgotten, the Washington Post claimed to have an informer in the Nixon administration who gave them the scoop on President Nixon’s perfidies in the Watergate scandal.

Two Post “reporters” wrote about their late night, secret meetings with “Deep Throat.” But did “Deep Throat” exist, or was he a ruse that allowed the Post to keep up the attack on Nixon for which it had no evidence?

Nixon was brought down when a White House aide--not “Deep Throat”--revealed that audio tapes existed of all of his meetings. Nixon’s “great sin” was that he lied about when he first learned of the Watergate burglary, and the tapes revealed that.

The Post reporters’ stories of meetings with “Deep Throat” conveyed an ominous, portentous danger, and these connotations were draped on Nixon. Would the fearful but brave reporter and the cautious but public spirited informer be assassinated in their after midnight meeting in the dark, lonely underground parking garage?

If “Deep Throat” existed and knew anything, he would have told the Post about the tapes in the first meeting and that would have been the end of the matter. “Deep Throat” also would have revealed himself long ago. He would be the greatest liberal hero of our time. Clinton would have given him the Medal of Honor. No personality in Washington would be able to pass up such accolades.

Ponder the implications of a newspaper using a fictional character to destroy a President of the United States.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.