Bush Will "F--- Whack This S---" for Enron, "Crude, But True"(CBS Rather Blathers Enron Bush Tie)

CBS on Tuesday night resurrected the Enron scandal and made sure to tie it to President Bush. Playing some audio tapes of conversations amongst low-level Enron sales staffers, CBS News reporter Vince Gonzales maintained that back in 2000 "they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices." Gonzales also claimed that some inarticulate vulgarity by an unidentified Enron staffer, about how Bush will "f------ whack this s---, man. He won't f------ play this price-cap bull----," was "crude, but true."

Anchor Dan Rather set up the CBS Evening News story which led the June 1 broadcast: "Good evening. We begin tonight with a CBS News exclusive. You are about to hear the shocking words of Enron employees as the company was boldly ripping off the state of California and consumers high and low, manipulating gas, oil and electricity markets. Market manipulation in this country and elsewhere is at the heart of criminal charges still pending against former Enron executives, the first of whom go on trial next week in Houston. CBS News investigative correspondent Vince Gonzales obtained the audiotapes the U.S. government had kept under wraps hoping, along with Enron, that you would never hear them."

Maybe government lawyers wanted to keep them private so they could be used in criminal proceedings. By Rather's logic, all prosecutors, who don't divulge to the media all the evidence they've gathered, are in collusion to hide valuable information from the public.

Gonzales began, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated."

Gonzales: "Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, on audiotapes obtained by CBS News, Enron's energy traders can be heard gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on and cash in on the western power crisis."

Audio clip of employee #1 [Text on screen, with ---- and parts of words bleeped, over video of electricity meter]: "He just f---- - California. He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

Audio clip of employee #2 in the apparently recorded phone call: "Will you rephrase that?"

Employee #1: "Okay, he, arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day."

Gonzales: "The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS News reported years ago. In secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants to shut down."

Audio clip of employee #3 [Text over picture of power plant]: "If you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?"

Audio clip of employee #4: "Oh, it's not something you want to be just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way."

Gonzales: "Officials with us in Snohomish public utility district near Seattle received the tapes from the Justice Department."

Eric Christensen, Snohomish County Public Utility District: "These tapes prove beyond a doubt that Enron was engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to defraud the rate payers of the entire West Coast."

Gonzales: "That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from Enron."

Audio clip of employee #5 [Over picture of power lines]: "They're f------ takin' all the money back from you guys? All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

Employee #5: "Yeah, now she wants her f------ money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her ass for f------ $250 a megawatt hour."

Gonzales: "And the tapes appear to link top Enron official Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay to schemes that fueled the crisis."

Audio clip of unidentified female "executive": "Government affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling."

Same unidentified female executive: "Do you know when you started over-scheduling load and making buckets of money on that?"

Gonzales, over video of balloons dropping on George and Laura Bush at the 2000 Republican convention: "Before the 2000 election, Enron employees pondered the possibilities of a Bush win."

Audio clip of employee #9: "It'd be great. I'd love to see Ken Lay be Secretary of Energy."

Gonzales: "That didn't happen. But they were sure President Bush would fight any limits on sky-high energy prices."

Employee #9, with "Enron Phone Recordings, CBS News Exclusive" on screen and text of audio over a shot of Bush on a dais: "When this election comes, Bush'll f------ whack this s---, man. He won't f------ play this price-cap bull----."

George W. Bush in a speech, May 29, 2001: "We will not take any action that makes California's problems worse. And that's why I oppose price caps."

Gonzales concluded: "Both the Justice Department and Enron tried to prevent the release of these tapes. Enron's attorneys argued they merely prove, quote, 'that people at Enron sometimes talked like Barnicle Bill the sailor.' Vince Gonzales, CBS News, Los Angeles."

For the online version of this story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/01/eveningnews/main620626.shtml

Does anyone know how these tapes were obtained? They seem like a Hollywood parody of corporate evildoers. I know there are true creeps in the world, but these conversations sound too bad to be true; they reiterate every Hollywood stereotype about evil corporations: robbing grandma, laughing at the unfortunate, the references to evil Republicans and the Bush administration, etc. Do we know for sure that these tapes are authentic?

Since you have been a member for so long, why don't you fill out your profile?

They are probably either power dispatcher or energy trading desk tapes.

Most electric utilties for both legal, safety and liability reasons tape all dispatcher discussions. Have you ever called your electric utility to report and outage? If you have that conversation was probably taped, unless it was during a massive storm, when customer service representatives were brought in to answer the high call volume.

My understanding of the tapes from the article is that they were mostly with the Enron Energy trading desk in Portland Oregon. Because of the dollar magnitude and potential for finacial disputes, those dispatcher's calls are also regularly taped. I am not sure if the transcripts also include any dispatcher tapes, although some of the discussions about can a plant be shut down, seem more appropriate for a power dispatcher discussion than with an energy desk trader.

You can always check out the Everett Herald articles:

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/04/06/05/loc_enron001.cfm

Note the following sentence that ends the next article....It's standard practice in the industry to tape phone calls made by energy traders."

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/04/06/09/loc_pud001.cfm

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