ENRON AND THE PRESIDENT

The indictment of Enron chairman Kenneth Lay gives the Democrats a “windfall” according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The indictment of former Enron chief Ken Lay represents an election year windfall for Democrats — who say the man President Bush nicknamed “Kenny Boy” is a poster boy for corporate greed and malfeasance. Lay’s indictment Wednesday (July 7) in connection with the energy giant’s 2001 bankruptcy hands Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats the perfect person to link the president’s re-election campaign to the high-living corporate miscreants who left their companies, workers and stockholders in financial ruin, politicians and analysts said.

It is true that the corruption and influence-peddling between Enron and the President of the United States went very deep. Consider:

1. Enron’s chairman did meet with the president and the vice president
in the Oval Office

2. Enron gave $420,000 to the president’s party over three years.

3. Enron donated $100,000 to the president’s inauguration festivities.

4. The Enron chairman stayed at the White House 11 times.

5. The corporation had access to the president’s administration at its highest levels and even enlisted the Commerce and State Departments to grease deals for it.

6. The president directed the taxpayer-supported Export-Import Bank to subsidize Enron for more than $600 million in just one transaction.

There is just one problem for the Democrats in all of this collusion. The president in all these cases was not George W. Bush. It was Bill Clinton.