another G W thread

[jah]

heres something my stepdad sent to me

 

01/29/2002

 

Dear George,

 

When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up your

pretzels and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your biggest

regret? Not getting out more often and seeing the sights around Rock

Creek Park? Never once visiting the newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge,

Virginia? Or buying your way to the White House with money from a company

that committed the biggest corporate swindle in American history? I got a

feeling you didn't miss much by not spending an entire Saturday afternoon

assembling a Swedish bookcase -- but you should have known that there was

no way you would ever finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth

Lay.

 

It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most

popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from your

fellow Americans after September 11, and then you had to go and blow it.

You just couldn't stay away from your old cowpoke friend from Texas,

Kenneth Lay.

 

Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly around to

all the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so Kenny

gave you his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you arrived in

each city that the bird you flew in on was from a billionaire who was

secretly conspiring to give the bird to all his employees and investors?

He flew you around America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor

you touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that

you were "going to restore dignity to the White House, the people's

house." You said this standing in front of an Enron jet!

 

Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to him

as "Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in April,

2000, to fly back to Houston for the Astros opening day at the new Enron

Field -- just so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch.

How sentimental!

 

I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were awarded a set

of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in the White

House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania

Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level Energy Department

positions in your administration.

 

You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency

that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the

Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for

his accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also

worked to make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous

regulations and would not be held liable for any "funny bookkeeping"

(don't you wish you were this forward-thinking?).

 

The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, Dick

Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big contracts

from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay and Dick

formed an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) which put

together the country's new "energy policy." This policy then went on to

shut down every light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And

guess who made out like bandits while "trading" the energy California was

in desperate need of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder Big Dick doesn't

want to turn over the files about those special meetings with Lay!

 

The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who

ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media just

rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on your

payroll is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A

former advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of

Alcoa, whose

lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the your

campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm representing Enron! Who

is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. Thomas White, the Secretary of the

Army? A former vice-chair of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal

Trade Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man

at the White House? He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock.

 

Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal judge in

Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the Republican Party, the

two Enron officials who now work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and

the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And

there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney

whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets. George, it

never stops! My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and

there's lots more.

 

Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil man. You

don't need any crap from people like me -- heck, you got mother-in-law

problems! Now, I have a very good relationship with my mother-in-law, but

then, I never told her to put $8,000 of her money into a company my

administration knew was going belly-up.

 

You say you didn't know? Your bag man -- Don Evans, the man who squeezed

all that money for you from Enron as your campaign finance chairman (and

is now collecting his reward as your Commerce Secretary) -- has admitted

that he got calls from Enron begging for help last year because they were

going under. Didn't he tell you this?

 

Then Paul O'Neill, your Treasury Secretary, admitted that Enron and Kenny

Boy called him, too, for some special favors to save Enron. Didn't he

mention this to you? They claim to have called your chief of staff,

Andrew Card, and he said he didn't bother to inform you. What does your

mother-in-law think about these boys her daughter's husband consorts with?

 

I love watching the O'Neill and Evans show. What a couple of cut-ups!

They're, like, all proud of themselves for "not doing Enron any favors."

Actually, I think it's more like they didn't do your MOTHER-IN-LAW any

favors. Enron got LOTS of favors. And why not? Kenny Boy has been your

number one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American

or Saudi has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron.

O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- ALL of them

gave Lay and Enron special favors from day one. The New York Times

last May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of the place (1600

Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as the "shadow advisor to the

president."

 

And what advice! Who was it that wanted you to deregulate the energy

industry further? Kenny Boy! Who was it that convinced you to explore the

sick idea of PRIVATIZING our water supply and then allow private

corporations to "trade" it in the future? Kenny Boy! Who was it that

wanted Social Security to be tied to the stock market? Yup, Kenny Boy!

(Imagine, if you will, what would have happened to our precious Social

Security funds had they been invested in Enron stocks as you, George,

suggested be done during your campaign as yuppies everywhere clucked

along in agreement over that genius idea.)

 

O'Neill's and Evans's admission that they "did nothing" when Enron told

them of the company's shell game and impending collapse is reason enough

for you and yours to hit the Beltway and never return to that sacred

trust we call Our American Government. They are proud of "doing nothing?"

By doing nothing, millions of Americans have been swindled. Tens of

thousands have lost their jobs. Thousands more have lost their savings

and their retirement. Yet your cabinet secretaries gloat over what a

"good job" you and they did by "doing nothing."

 

Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire, and they

called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no you wouldn't help

them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911 and inform the police that

someone was going to burn down a house, do you think you would have

committed a crime?

 

Of course you would have! You had prior knowledge and then you knowingly

and purposefully HID this information from the authorities and the people

living in the house! You only admitted that you knew a house was going to

be torched when you were confronted by the police. Are you complicit?

Yes! Are you an accessory? Yes! Who would even think of going around

boasting, "Hey, look what a great guy I am -- a friend of mine told me he

was going to commit an act of arson, and then I decided NOT to tell

ANYONE about it!! WHOO-HOO!!"

 

Enron and Kenny Boy bought your silence and the silence of your cabinet

members. You yourself didn't have to actually raid the 401(k) accounts of

those poor people in Houston (many of whom probably voted for you every

time your name was on a ballot). All you had to do was remain silent,

change the government regulations that let them get away with it, and

install their hand-picked cronies to sit on the "oversight" boards which

were supposed to be keeping an eye on them.

 

While doing all this, you told the American people that these rich

friends of yours were not getting any special breaks -- when, in fact,

Enron had already scammed their way out of paying NO taxes in four out of

the last five years. Your economic "stimulus" bill that you got the House

to pass after 9-11 had a section that would give Enron a gift of $250

million of our tax money. You were pushing this bill in November and

December, long after your administration knew that Enron was raiding the

vault and screwing its workers and investors.

 

You and your Republican friends are quick to point out that Enron had

their claws into the Democrats as well. Yes, they did, and thank you for

making the case why we not only need an alternative to the current

make-up of the Democratic Party, we need private money removed from our

electoral process ASAP.

 

But, George, let's be real -- the Democrats only got a pittance from

Enron compared to the millions you and the Republicans received.

Democrats just don't have the killer instinct to do anything right, and

they certainly don't know much about making money the old-fashioned way,

one off-shore tax shelter at a time. I would expect nothing less from a

Party that couldn't even put their candidate in the White House after he

had already won the election.

 

The Democrats are like a Yugo -- you know it won't last long or work

well, but it will occasionally get the job done. Fat cats know they can

buy the Democrats at discount prices, and so they do. Anyone who tries to

deflect this scandal away from you, George, or away from the Republicans,

or away from the whole dirty way we elect our leaders, is someone who is

desperately trying to cling to what's left of a very crooked system that

has to go and go now.

 

The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal was

revealed -- and you denied that you even knew your good friend, Kenneth

Lay. "Ken who?" you said. Oh, he's just some businessman from Texas.

"Heck, he backed my opponent for governor, Ann Richards!" was your way of

trying to deflect the truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You

knew that he, in fact, endorsed YOU and gave you THREE times the money

Ann Richards ever saw from him.

 

I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter outside the

walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the Garden of Gethsemane.

Three times he denied he knew Jesus, and three times the cock crowed. But

Peter, unlike you, felt shame and wept, and then ran away.

 

What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have told? What

shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a cover for your actions,

hoping that our sorrow for those lost souls and our fear of being killed

by terrorists would distract us from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up

to during those horrific weeks in September and October?

 

It was during those very days, while the rest of us were in shock and

sadness, that the executives at Enron were selling off their stock and

shifting assets to their 900 phony partnerships overseas. Did they notice

the remains of the dead being pulled from the rubble while they were

downloading their millions, or were their eyes glued only to the bottom

third of the TV screen as the stock ticker with the rigged Enron price

crawled across the images of firemen desperate, in tears, to find their

fallen brothers?

 

The country was behind you when you said you were fighting the evildoers

who did this. In fact, all the while, the real fight your friends at

Enron were conducting was the fight against the clock, to see how fast

they could transfer all the loot to their personal accounts and run away.

Those were the evildoers, George, and you knew it. And because you, by

design or negligence, allowed this to happen, it is time for you to

resign. The cock has crowed for the last time.

 

At the very least, your mother-in-law deserves better.

 

Yours,

 

Michael Moore

[Guest BROWNer]

^

[ceasroni]

wooow wooow..way to much reading..:eek:

[Guest --zeSto--]

Originally posted by ceasroni

wooow wooow..way to much reading..

 

that's what George W. said too !

[patrickjilbert]

awesome

[ASER1NE]

too long

[jah]

if i wouldve read the whole thing myself i wouldve realized it was that long and shortened it. i just read the first half or so and posted it. bump for zesto. he/or she (sorry but i dont know) is into this kinda shit.