2.18.02 @ 12:03AM
To listen to some Democrats, they're essentially accusing Bush Republicans of favoring corporate donors exactly the way Democrats have for years.
At age 80, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings is South Carolina's
junior senator. Lately, he has been trying to help his
Democratic colleagues by giving them what he thinks is a catchy
phrase with which to beat up the Bush administration. His line is
that this is a "cash-and-carry" administration. The implication is
that Enron paid and the Bush people delivered. He first intoned
this slogan while doing his impersonation of an outraged citizen.
(He may be a junior senator, but he understands how things work on
Capitol Hill. Between 1996 and 2000 he took $1.2 million in PAC
contributions.)
Enron contributions to Bush's campaign seem to have produced
only a flat turn-down of support for the flawed Kyoto treaty which
Enron saw as a potential source of riches for its traders.
Things were a little different in the Clinton years. Then, it
was a matter of you give us the cash; we'll carry your water.
During those eight years Enron had seats on four Department of
Energy and seven Department of Commerce overseas trade missions. It
was well known in those days that non-contributors to the
Democratic Party need not apply.
Over an 18-month period in 1995 and '96, Clinton administration
officials helped Enron close a $3 billion power plant deal in
India. Just four days before India gave the final green light,
Enron made a $100,000 contribution to the Democratic National
Committee. It was, of course, a mere coincidence. Of course.
Enron was ecumenical when it came to politics, quite naturally
putting its money where it thought its self-interest lay at any
given time. More recently it tilted toward Republicans -- with
nothing to show for it. In the Clinton years, it was the Democrats.
Between 1990 and 2000, the DNC received hundreds of thousands of
dollars from Enron sources.
Clinton administration officials beavered away for Enron.
National Security Adviser Anthony Lake stalled an aid package to
Mozambique until that country approved an Enron pipeline project.
Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson went to Nigeria to help arrange
for a joint energy development project that resulted in $882
millions' worth of power contracts for Enron.
Democrat Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, now chairman of
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in 2000 received
$23,374 from Enron and its auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, which,
to a borrow phrase from the elder George Bush, is now in deep
doo-doo.
Global Crossing, the fiber optics telecommunications company
that just tanked, had similar experiences. In 1997, its altruistic
CEO, Gary Winnick, offered Clinton insider Terry McAuliffe company
stock before it soared. McAuliffe's $100,000 investment turned into
$18 million after the company went public. Later, McAuliffe
arranged for Winnick to play golf with Clinton. Just a little
tête-à-tête among friends. That's all.
In 1999 Global Crossing hired Senator Bingaman's wife, a
lobbyist, to help it thwart an effort by its competitors to lay a
cable between the U.S. and Japan. The senator's financial
disclosure report for 2000 shows that his wife made a capital gain
of over $1 million on the sale of Global Crossing stock. She
probably kept it a secret from him until he had to file the report,
lest her good fortune affect his voting.
Recently, the high-minded Mr. McAuliffe, now chairman of the
DNC, told CNN about Enron: "...the wealthy special interests got to
take their money off the table and that's what we need to
investigate." Over at Global Crossing last May, his pal Winnick
took a lot of money off the table -- several hundred million
dollars worth of sold stock -- as the company's fortunes were
declining. In late June, according to Roy Olafson, the company
official who blew the whistle on its odd accounting practices,
Global's chief financial officer delayed telling shareholders that
the company's outlook was grim for the balance of the year, lest
they think Mr. Winnick had been using his insider's knowledge to
profit from impending bad news. No doubt Mr. McAuliffe, with his
keen interest in good government, will insist the
Democrat-controlled Senate investigate Global Crossing, its
creative bookkeeping and its with-it auditors, the same Arthur
Andersen who worked for Enron. No doubt.
topics:
Trade, Law, NATO, Energy
