>George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane
>
>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 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 Astro's 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 county'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. Timothy 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
>American
>Son-in-Law
>Owner of 7th LARGEST COMPANY IN AMERICA! (revised ranking)
>mmflint@aol.com http://www.michaelmoore.com
>

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