MEDIA WATCH SPECIAL REPORT:
BILL
MOYERS “NOW” -- Friday, January 25, 2002
“ENRON:
“KEN LAY, SON OF A BAPTIST PREACHER, REALLY KNEW HOW TO PASS
THE PLATE….”
Friday night Bill Moyers
went directly into the belly of the beast—Houston,
Texas—to sniff around Enron’s history and chat with
some of the locals.
To all those Bush
apologist-journalists who claim Enron is way too complicated for
the average American to understand, they should watch and learn
from Moyers.
“Enron was a
middleman. It wasn’t an energy company the way we
think of energy companies…They didn’t pump
oil…They brought buyers and sellers together, taking a piece
of the action along the way.”
Simple enough for you,
crack Washington press corps??
Moyers then moved on to
the good stuff—the over 2800 subsidiaries Enron set up. An
attorney by the name of Berg, minced no words. Berg served
as the Chairman of HAWK, a public works entity charged with
figuring out how to distribute water in the Houston region.
Berg explained how safe water is a big issue in Houston since
most of the supply comes from surface sources like Lake Houston
and the commission was looking for a company that was stable and
was going to be around for a long time.
Enter Azurix, one of
Enron’s subsidiaries. According to Berg, “What
got me was the offshore portion of this…that really set up a
red flag…It seemed as if Enron had something to hide…It
looked more like a drug deal than a business deal.”
Berg’s board
rejected Azurix and Enron began to play tough. Berg himself
was berated by the Mayor of Houston in public. “I had
a sense that they were going to get this job, come hell or high
water.” Commenting on the company’s financial
condition he said, “I was stunned by the level of
duplicity…. Look, I know about fraud, I’m from Texas.
I never saw anything like this in 35 years. In retrospect,
I can see the same sleight of hand that they used with the
American public.”
Then Moyers sat down with
John Olson, who studies and rates companies for a big Houston
firm with about twelve names in the title. Olson was
described as an “early skeptic.” “Gray
areas, doublespeak, things alluded to” but never really
detailed—that was an Enron report. “And Olson got
what Berg had gotten,” said Moyers. “Ken Lay went
right to Olson’s boss.”
Then Moyers fished around
the greed angle. Berg described Enron as being “the
most rapacious company ever.”Alan Somers (sp?), who was laid
off in December 2001, said that “Greed was a big part of the
corporate culture and it was rewarded.”
Reverend James Nutter,
pastor at the church where Somers worshiped, described how he had
talked to a number of members about what it was like to work at
Enron.According to Nutter, it was “hyper competitive and it
spread like a virus.” He described the situation as a
place where to get ahead you would stand on the face of the guy
underneath you and at the same time be pulling at the tie of the
guy above you. Sounds like a happy workplace to me!!
Moyers quickly ran
through the Phil and Wendy Gramm connection, commenting,
“meanwhile Gramm made sure the Senate gave Enron further
exemptions.” Enron also had the help of 89 lobbyists
pushing its interests.
Craig McDonald of Texans
for Public Justice was asked, “What did it get from its
political clout?” “Well, it got….
Enron!” he replied. Deregulation and other favors, which
helped the company, grow and grow and grow in size and influence.
“I feel taken.”
“We don’t think
of retiring now, we just think about surviving.”
“I blame greediness,
how much money does someone have to make at other peoples’
expense?”
“The motto of the
company was “Ask why?” and no one was asking why.”
Segue to a taped
interview with Robert Bartley—Editor of the Wall Street
Journal…
Bartley has to be the
poster boy for all that is the GOP. Sneering,
evasive, and utterly full of sang-froid, Bartley has always
struck me as just a low-key version of the Dick Armeys and Tom
Delays of the Republican universe. Moyers introduced the
segment by commenting “Almost single-handedly he
turned the investigation of Whitewater into an epic.”
Moyers asked why Enron
had happened. “Oh, we had a big boom and
there’s always a shakeout afterwards. This time it’s
Enron,” Bartley intoned, masterfully implying there was a
shade of Clinton involvement while brushing off the biggest mess
to hit corporate America in history. Moyers persisted,
asking how long the scandal would go on. “Oh, it
won’t go on for 8 years, “ smirked Bartley. “That
depends a lot on YOU,” Moyers parried. Of course,
Bartley expressed caution on that front—“Oh, our stress
is that we have a pretty good system and we want to tinker with
it very carefully.” Yeah, right, Mr. Bartley—the
same could be said about tinkering with an entire
Presidency…
Then Bartley launched
into his “Ari Fleischer” defense mode by stating with a
completely straight face “Whatever regulation hanky
panky happened was during the Clinton Administration. Then with
the Bush administration things got tight and it got found
out.” I nearly threw my mouse at the TV…
Moyers should have picked
up on that but instead chose to unload a series of questions that
you will never hear on “Squawk Box” or The Wall Street
Journal’s editors’ roundtable able aired by CNBC every
quarter.
Q: Should there be a
Special Prosecutor??? After much hemming and hawing,
Bartley finally admitted that “certainly there should be a
criminal investigation.”
Q: Should Harvey Pitt,
SEC head who lobbied for Enron step down for the integrity of the
Commission? “Oh, I don’t know, seems a little
extreme to me.”
Q: Should corporations be
allowed to contribute as much as they want to politicians?Not a
problem “so as long as it’s watched.”
Q: 30 countries including
the U.S. tried to close down offshore havens. Bank
lobbies and others stopped effort. Comment?
“Well, I had mixed feelings. The Europeans were trying to
get an onerous tax level….” (Yeah, and that was the
Clinton Administration attempt to stop the “hanky
panky” that you blame on them, Bartley, you phony hypocrite)
Q: Who should protect the
public against excesses? “Anyone put in charge would
be probably guilty of excesses themselves…And you don’t
want to squeeze the vitality of the system, like the European
have done…leave no room for human folly.” (Do you mean
crooked GOP folly?)
Q: Who should be the watchdog? “Well, the markets should be the watchdog.”
Q: I’m saying who
should do the job so the little guy isn’t taken for a ride?
“The media should do its job .” (Huge
laugh--yeah, when info is getting shredded and the media is all
owned by corporations!!) “People should
DIVERSIFY. Trying to control investment is a very dangerous
thing.”
Q:Do you remember when
Sen. Boxer put up a proposal placing a 10% limit on 401K
investments in company stock? Conservatives stopped it. “
Well, I didn’t follow it exactly…well, I might consider
it more seriously today….” (Sure you never
followed it…your nose is growing, Mr. Bartley!)
I guess the segment was
taped before Peggy Noonan, WSJ opinion columnist, revealed the
whole story about her feeding at the Enron trough.
I’m sure Bartley would have pinned a gold star on my old
school chum for her scrappy and clever way of becoming part of
the Enron story. Hey, it looks like she at least she got paid in
cash instead of stock for her efforts…
Moyers then delivered his
closing Commentary …”If this isn’t a wake up call,
I don’t know what is”… But there have been wake up
calls before and they’ve been forgotten…” He then
quickly outlined how “these big business failures like Ivan
Boesky ultimately are paid for by you know who—“(US!!!)
and mentioned specifically, how Lay got favors and was still
supposed to get a tax break before al this crashed.
My favorite comment:
“Ken Lay, son of a Baptist preacher, really knew how to pass
the plate….”
I skipped the next
segment on a Pentagon attack widow who was protesting the
war. By chance I happened upon TNN’s Conspiracy Zone.
Before opening up a panel discussion on the question of whether
or not Elvis is dead, host Kevin Nealon, SNL alumnus, set up the
show by commenting on how he didn’t know
anything—“After all, I thought Al Gore won the
election.”
You know, Kevin, so did
I…Maybe you can devote a segment of Conspiracy Zone to THAT
subject….
Copyright 2002, Gloria R.
Lalumia
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