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

MRC ^ | Wednesday June 2, 2004 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

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."

Audio clip of Enron employee: "Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing."

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."

Employee #3: "Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down?"

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?"

Audio clip of employee #6: "Yeah, grandma Millie, man."

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."

Audio clip of employee #8: "Okay."

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----."

Gonzales: "Crude, but true."

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

[Dog Gone]

I don't think Enron or the California power crisis will have any impact on this election unless California starts having blackouts again this summer.

I am totally convinced that the American public, in any meaningful numbers, can't remember anything longer than six months.

This story is a nice one-day smear, but it's just part of a never-ending campaign to elect Kerry. By itself, I don't think it means much.

[solo gringo]

BOYCOTT CBS IT IS A HAZARD TO AMERICAN FREEDOM>

[samadams2000]

Is it free speech to publish the addresses of journalists?

[lonestar]

What did Lay and Enron donate to Clinton and the DNC other than the $100,000 mention earlier?

[snooker]

At the rate see-BS is going, by this time next year they will have less viewers than CNN.

[lonestar]

During Clinton's eight years in office, the company and Lay contributed about $900,000 to the Democratic Party. Former Enron officials said an important part of their strategy to win favor with the Gore campaign was a significant increase in the company's donations to Democrats. In 1999 and 2000, the company gave $362,000 in soft-money donations to Democrats.

Never mind to my question about donations to Dems.

[Zechariah11]

Dan Rather -- the anchorman who blushed and gushed before Saddam.

[NeonKnight]

There were a couple of guys down at the local pub hammering on Bush. I have it on tape. You think Dan will air it for me?

[Dog Gone]

Absolutely. You could probably sell it to him for big bucks.

[no_problema]

that's correct.

if rather wasn't an a-h, he'd question what the s.e.c under the clinton admin. was doing, or rather, not doing.

[snopercod]

were they not manipulating the market during the Clinton Administration?

Actually, all the investigations to date have not found any manipulation at all, or very little.

But the liberal press is desperate for anything they can pin on President Bush, so they keep telling the big lie in hopes it will catch on if they repeat it enough times.

[snopercod]

That's right. Enron made so much money manipulating the energy markets that they promptly went out of business.

And I also believe that John Kerry was a war hero.

[FierceDraka]

Oh, what I would pay to have Dan Rather alone for just 5 minutes. In a dark alley.

/from an old Pantera song, "Five Minutes Alone"

[Recovering_Democrat]

MY EMAIL TO SEE B.S. "NEWS"

Dan Rather & the whole "decision"-making crew at CBS Evening News:

Lousy lead story tonight, again trying to dredge up the old Enron thing. Bill Clinton's administration was the one presiding when Enron was bilking investors and, allegedly, consumers. He did squat.

California since then has voted in a Republican governor...and the Ashcroft Justice Department has gone after a lot of the suspected perps in Enron. Breaks your heart, eh?

Trying to make Bush the bad guy here is foolishness. Gonzales and Rather both should know the Enron guys called and asked for special help from the Bush administration and were REFUSED. Guess that never made it into your report.

And the economic _fact_ that price caps DECREASE supply and are a _drain_ on the economy. A simple review of a very elementary book 'Basic Economics' by Dr. Thomas Sowell would provide the evidence for that statement. But, again, simple facts aren't in the agenda, are they? CBS gatekeepers would rather shade their journalism a very bright yellow.

The pathetically biased reporting from CBS is just another evidence as to why networks are trending toward a loss in market share while cable and internet sources of news are gaining. Who do you really think you're fooling? Even your older-trending demographics aren't going to buy this anti-Bush bilge forever.