Bush and Enron

David Cay Johnston's Free Lunch is a catalog of outrages so infuriating that I can't stand to read more than one or two chapters at a time. The Enron chapter is a reminder of the degree to which George Bush was the creature of Ken Lay and Enron. Lay built Enron largely by buying and paying for Texas politicians, and Bush was a prime beneficiary. Lay and his minions lavished money on an politician whose only credible political asset was his name and played key roles in making him first Governor and later President.

It's also a reminder of the degree to which the Bush administration was a criminal conspiracy, even separate and apart from his actions and inactions in the international arena. Lay's money bought him more than access. He told Bush whom to appoint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and got what money paid for: a FERC that totally ignored its responsibilities and instead concentrated on covering up the crimes of Enron, even after those crimes had been exposed and prosecuted.

Bush and Cheney - it's hard to tell the extent to which Bush was merely Cheney's puppet - consistently promoted criminality and criminals, but they and their criminals tended to be as stupid as they were corrupt. Despite the vast amounts they stole, the criminal front men manged to blunder away most of their ill-gotten gains.

Got to love those Republicans.

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