| Democratic senators on the investigating committee looking into Enron had a happy time at the expense of a former Enron executive, Secretary of the Army Thomas White, who had a solid refresher course on combat duty. He didn't risk his life, but he certainly risked his reputation, ending the bloody encounter by saying that he was "ashamed" of what had happened to Enron.
But the prosecution was not there to grant absolutions. Senators Bryan Dorgan, Barbara Boxer and Max Cleland are clearly returning to their bases only to pick up extra fuel and ammunition for another sortie.
A moment in the exchange that proved entrancing to the television news had one senator saying to the Army secretary, "How much money did you make working for Enron?" Answer: "I don't know, exactly."
Q: Well, are you worth 10 million dollars?
A: I haven't counted.
Q: Twenty million?
A: I would have to add it up.
Then Senator Cleland of Georgia, who was decorated for military service in Vietnam, let drop a blockbuster bomb. "In combat, officers eat last. In the economic turmoil, the economic warfare that they faced, Enron officers ate first."
Cleland was addressing a man who graduated from West Point, served 23 years in the U.S. Army, was awarded a Silver Star for heroic conduct under fire, then went to the private sector with Enron, and is now back in the public sector with the Bush administration. His defense had been simply that he worked in a division of Enron removed from any division that could have engaged in the attempted manipulation of energy prices. That, yes, he had made money, the equivalent, in business, of the tender earned by politicians who engage in heroism under television lights.
In his Army career, White was never accused of self-pity, but in the atmosphere of the committee room he did think it justified to remark that he too had been affected by the collapse of Enron. He was left holding 665,000 stock options in January that were worthless. Continued... |