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

[gswilder]

Actually CBS radio surprised me today (6/2) about this. They said "this occurred during the end of the Clinton adminstration, and was one of the first issues addressed by the Bush administration in 2001." I almost drove off the road.

[nutmeg]

What bothers me is that many of my parents' generation tune in to RatherJenningsBrokaw every night, and soak up their propaganda like a sponge.

I've noticed the same. We've visited a lot of assisted living facilities and nursing homes lately, checking them out for my 80-year-old mother. At 6:30 every night - like clockwork - you can hear every TV tuned to RatherJenningsBrokaw (mostly Rather, from what I've seen and heard). One assisted living facility even has a little "club" of women who get together at 6:30 every night to watch Dan Blather together (*gag*). And I know for a fact these places do get Fox News. Most seem unaware of FNC... It's sad.

My mother is a huge Brit Hume fan, BTW. :-)

[Poodlebrain]

"The fiscal disaster and the energy crisis in California were easily predictable. The policies of the state made it almost inevitable. Bush shouldn't be bailing states out from themselves."

I absolutely agree. There is no issue involved other than a media attempt to create an issue. The issue of Enron is long forgotten by voters, and will remain so unless the media can create a new issue. I merely hypothesized that the media would attempt to link Enron and the California recall election with Bush's deciding not to bail out California.

[Dog Gone]

I have no idea. If he was banned, I think his posts would automatically be removed, so it's apparently a suspension.
Blaming the Bush administration for the California power crisis is flat out stupid Democrat rhetoric, though, and that's the path he was heading down.

[Joe Hadenuf]

I didn't see anything to cause his suspension. Did you? He seemed fairly credible.

[Starve The Beast]

Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation...

Excuse me, no. We didn't deregulate our energy market. It was an elaborate government-control scheme that Steve Peace (the author of the plan) and Pete Wilson (Governor at the time) called deregulation.

If we'd actually allowed the free market - the only system of regulating prices that has ever worked - to operate, Enron wouldn't have had the opportunity to manipulate us.

[Starve The Beast]

Hey Dog, know why this guys account was just banned?

Dammit, is that right? Man, I hate to think you can be banned just for being a lib. We're better than that. That's the kind of Nazism that DU is obsessed with.

[Dog Gone]

You might ask the moderator. I had nothing to do with it. I'm not going to vouch for his credibility, especially since I was about to disagree with him.

[Dog Gone]

Oh brother, don't call the moderators "Nazis." Geez, tell me that you're smarter than that.

[Dianna]

I expect any night now Dan Rather will begin his news broadcast wearing panties on his head. And insisting that the Bush Administration, with the help of Enron and Halliburton, placed them there.

I had never heard before, during a commercial break on radio, Dan Rather promoting his evening newscast. It didn't even "sound" like a canned commercial, but rather like a breaking news alert.

I came home, after hearing the commercial on Tuesday, expecting this to be a huge, breaking story.

[arasina]

Okay. Now do the research on Ken Lay and Clinton, or any Dim for that matter. Let's see it. In all fairness.

[Starve The Beast]

Oh brother, don't call the moderators "Nazis." Geez, tell me that you're smarter than that.

Dude, I'm not calling the Admins Nazis, but I really think we should tolerate dissenting opinions as long as they're not abusive, or don't break any posting rules. I'm confident in my conservative ideals, as I'm sure you are. Banning libs just for disagreeing with us makes us look like chickens. To quote a great man: "Bring it on."

Er, no, wait... that applies to Lurch, too...

[Joe Hadenuf]

I'm not going to vouch for his credibility, especially since I was about to disagree with him.

Whoops, to late. LOL.

By credible I meant he only had a dissenting opinion, I didn't see any violations.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Dammit, is that right? Man, I hate to think you can be banned just for being a lib. We're better than that. That's the kind of Nazism that DU is obsessed with.

Well, I will say his posts were quite interesting, and he only linked sources, so I don't have a clue what happened to the gentleman.

[CyberAnt]

Yes they were, and I live in San Diego so I know.

Also .. it was Joe Lieberman who set up a commission to investigate Enron. His comments were .. "this will bury Bush". Hmmmm? What happened that commission ..??

It got shut down by Lieberman because when he started investigating Enron .. it led straight back to the Clintons.

[Joe Hadenuf]

It got shut down by Lieberman because when he started investigating Enron .. it led straight back to the Clintons.

So we are to believe the Clinton was bumping bellys with ENRON from Texas, and Bush had no interest? Lieberman starts exposing Clinton so the whole thing disappears, and the Republicans stand in silence?

LOL! This picture is all crooked.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The media realizes that have to resurrect another dead horse to try to beat on the President again.

Ridiculous!

[Nevermore]

The facts about CAISO from an industry professional - 25 years in the Eastern Interconnection - with no love for Enron:

• It was a creation of Grey-out Davis
• It was destined to fail, by poor design, as any honest, competent professional knew from the start (thus explaining why Grey-out didn't realize this)
• $250/MW is not outrageous: it's occurred many times out east. It is a market signal to support new, local, peaking sources. If you want an electric market, you need market signals. Duh? That's kinda the point...
• That Enron could drive the market there is a testament to its poor design
• Capping artificially eliminates the incentive and perpetuates the shortage.
• The shortage was of California's own making.
• Blaming Bush for the rants of these Enron kids playing Grey Davis as a mark has all the intellectual integrity of blaming Rummy for the juveniles at Abu Graib (who were most likely Democrats, after all, given their lack of moral compass)

"Just the facts, M'am"

[Nevermore]

The facts about CAISO from an industry professional - 25 years in the Eastern Interconnection - with no love for Enron:

• It was a creation of Grey-out Davis
• It was destined to fail, by poor design, as any honest, competent professional knew from the start (thus explaining why Grey-out didn't realize this)
• $250/MW is not outrageous: it's occurred many times out east. It is a market signal to support new, local, peaking sources. If you want an electric market, you need market signals. Duh? That's kinda the point...
• That Enron could drive the market there is a testament to its poor design
• Capping artificially eliminates the incentive and perpetuates the shortage.
• The shortage was of California's own making.
• Blaming Bush for the rants of these Enron kids playing Grey Davis as a mark has all the intellectual integrity of blaming Rummy for the juveniles at Abu Graib (who were most likely Democrats, after all, given their lack of moral compass)

"Just the facts, M'am"

[BigSkyFreeper]

It's not the first time SeeBS tied the shenanigans of Enron with Bush, ignoring the Chinese deals, the screw over of California residents, and the close ties to the Clinton administration in their SeeBS Sunday Movie "The Big E" shortly after Bush was sworn in.