- back to Tribal Messenger
"George W. in the
An Open Letter to George W. Bush
from Michael Moore
Dear George,
When it's all over in a couple
months, and you're packing up your pretzels
and Spot and heading back to
getting out more often and seeing
the sights around
once visiting the newly-renovated
IKEA in
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
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
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
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
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 -- 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?).
Then 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"
"energy task force"
(Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the
county's new "energy
policy." This policy then went on to shut down every
light bulb and juicer in the state
of
like bandits while
"trading" the energy
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
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
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
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
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
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 in the Garden
of
crowed. And Peter felt shame and 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
American
Son-in-law
Owner of 7th LARGEST COMPANY IN
Letter from DC:
If Kenny-Boy Lay had been on the Titanic he'd have survived no
problem,
'cause he knows that "Women and
children first" means that's who gets fed to the sharks first. Kenny sent
out the missus last night to test the waters with a strategy that if it has
nothing else (and it doesn't look like it
does) has loads of chutzpah.
"We've lost everything," the tearful Mrs Kenny-Boy told the
Today show yesterday, blubbering about how the poor Lays are struggling to
maintain liquidity.
Everything, apparently, is relative. In this case, everything except for
a cool $8 mil in stock in two other companies, $25 million in real estate -
including not one but two houses in Aspen - plus a luxury apartment worth $7.1
mil and let's not forget the season tickets to the Houston Astros.
Ken collected $8.3 million in salary and bonus in 2000 and over the last
three years has raked in $200 million from Enron alone. God couldn't snort that
much cocaine so New York Times reporter Reed Abelson has got it right when he
dryly notes today that "There may be a range of investments that are
simply out of public view. Someone as financially sophisticated as Mr. Lay
could have made use of vehicles, even offshore trusts."
Gee, you think the guy whose company constructed 7,000 dummy
corporations in the
I'd feel worse for the down-and-out Kenny
Boy Family if it weren't for the millions of retirees whose pension funds lost
$1.5 billion when Enron tanked. Somehow I don't think they've got a couple of
houses in