Democrats and media hounds are baying under the wrong tree. The point in President Bush's business career where he took outrageous shortcuts was not at Harken Energy, but rather when he was grabbing land for a new baseball stadium in Arlington for his Texas Rangers baseball team.

Mr. Bush broke no laws. Neither do the overwhelming majority of corporate executives. The cloud over the business world comes not so much from law-breaking as from avaricious bruising of the public interest.

The challenge is not catching criminals but injecting public scrutiny into a culture of cronyism in which executives, accountants, regulators and "independent" board members all ooze empathy for each other.

When Asia had its economic crisis in 1997-98, Americans properly trashed its "crony capitalism." But we suffer from the same affliction ourselves, and President Bush will not address the issue seriously because cronyism has been his way of life — the Bushes call it loyalty.

I have a stack of court documents from Arlington that portray the "sordid and shocking tale" of the Rangers stadium, as one lawsuit puts it. Essentially, Mr. Bush and the owners' group he led bullied and misled the city into raising taxes to build a $200 million stadium that in effect would be handed over to the Rangers. As part of the deal, the city would even confiscate land from private owners so that the Rangers owners could engage in real estate speculation.

"It was a $200 million transfer to Bush and Rangers owners," complains Jim Runzheimer, an anti-tax campaigner in Arlington.

William Eastland, a leading Republican in Arlington, is also outraged, and puts it this way: "You're using public money for a private purpose." Mr. Eastland was a Bush delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2000 but still believes that the Bush group behaved shadily and against the public interest.

Local voters overwhelmingly approved the deal, so maybe we shouldn't get so exercised by star-struck local officials giving $200 million to rich baseball owners. But the most unseemly part of the deal was that Mr. Bush and the Rangers' owners conspired with city officials to seize private property that would be handed over to the Bush group.

"A group of wealthy and influential people threatened and traded their way into an unprecedented takeover of government power and private property in an awesome display of greed and avarice," charges a lawsuit by the landowners, in what strikes me as a fair recitation of events. Another suit charges that the deal "can only be described as astounding, unprecedented and blatantly illegal."

A copy of the secret agreement among Mr. Bush and the other Rangers owners shows that they intended to make money not just by running a baseball club but also by land speculation.

For example, one owner found a nice chunk of land and sent a memo suggesting that it "sounds like another condemnation candidate if you want to work the site into your master plan," according to the court documents. Another of the owners' internal memos casts a proprietary gaze on a property and declares: "We plan to condemn this land."

For a group of financiers to go around town admiring properties and deciding which to seize through the government power of condemnation so that they can take the land free and speculate on it is appalling. Even Kazakhstan would blush at such practices.

Horace Kelton, for example, owned land that the Rangers wanted. The owners got Arlington to seize it, with the city paying less than $1.50 per square foot even though it had previously paid $10 a square foot for other land nearby.

"It was an extremely low price, and that's why we had a court case that lasted seven years," Mr. Kelton recalled. Eventually, his family got $11 a square foot.

In fairness, Mr. Bush was simply being a hard-nosed businessman. He did a great job leading the owners' group, and it's hard to take seriously the caricature of him as unintelligent when he led the Rangers so lucratively. Indeed, his $14 million profit on the Rangers financed his entry into politics.

But it's also a sordid tale of cronyism, of misuse of power, of cozy backroom money-grubbing — a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality.

Mr. Bush broke no laws.

Let's say that again . . .

Mr. Bush broke no laws.

Louder. . . .

Mr. Bush broke no laws.

Again . . .

Mr. Bush broke no laws.

One more time . . .

Mr. Bush broke no laws.

Class dismissed.

To HELL with you liberal socialist toads!

You woulda fought with Santa Anna and TOGO if you had a chance, wouldn't ya?

As Great GranPappy Vincent Vidalia once proclaimed to a bunch of yeller onions hoping to serve on soybean burgers... "Ya otter be lined up and shot like the tater family was from a spud gun..."

Ann Richards tried to make political hay out of this in 1994. She failed, because there was no scandal.

The Brigadiers and the Democrats exhumed the claim in 2000. They failed, because there was no scandal.

Now, Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times and the liberal media will try to recycle the story one more time. They will fail. Because there was no scandal.

In the meantime, the voters of Arlington, who overwhelmingly approved the bonds, have seen their faith repaid -- early! The entire debt was retired six months ago, some six years ahead of schedule.

Nobody is complaining...but the Democrats and their media lapdogs.

By the way, Horace Kelton is nice guy.

Since Harken is not working, the Dems may try the Stadium issue-but, this will also backfire, because it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Question those waiting in the security screening line, at the airports-(where we are visibly reminded of the ever present terrorist threat)- how important is it to you, that there was some creative financing of the Stadium or that Bush sold stock 12 years ago?? The Dems look increasingly frantic and shallow, there is a whiff of desperation in the air!

I don't agree with the concept of eminent domain, especially when it's used for private benefit. Bush didn't break any laws, but the laws themselves are bad for allowing arbitrary land seizures by the government. However, I don't see what this has to do with the corporate scandals happening now, which is clearly what the NYT is trying to tie this to. This is a pathetic attempt to smear Bush with the anger that's out there now from the plunging market.

Let me inject some reality into this.

The Rangers have played ball at that location since day one. To say that Bush "bullied and misled" the city is dishonest. The city, with the taxpayers consent, built this stadium not just for Bush, but for the ball club and whoever would have owned the club. The old stadium was originally a minor league facility and small/outdated.

The area where the stadium is located is a tourist area. There is Six Flags, a Water Park, Convention Center & a Horse Track located nearby. It is centrally located in the DFW drawing from the entire metro area and a vacation destination for many from TX, OK, and LA. The city collects many tax dollers of this engine and would not consider losing the ball club to Dallas.

The city have also tried to let themselves be "bullied and misled" by the Smithsonian and the Dallas Cowboys

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