Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Enron trial: a model for ongoing war on the corrupt


The criminal justice penal code can't possibly provide proper punishment to match the unspeakable treachery concocted by Enron's masters of swindle, Chairman Kenneth Lay and Aide-de-fraud Jeffrey Skilling.

Living out their years in bleak prison cells would be letting them off easy.

The most abominable crime in their witches' brew of mischief was the destruction of 5,600 Enron employees' lives and $2.1 billion of their pensions. Imagine the dashed dreams of comfortable retirement, personal bankruptcies, mortgage foreclosures, and collapsed hopes of college educations.

Lay compounded his vile thievery with outlandish public lies--that Enron was flourishing even as he dumped millions of dollars in stock, and that he was utterly ignorant of financial chicanery behind his back, although he was paid tens of millions of dollars as boss to know and manage Enron's workings.

With guilty verdicts against Lay and Skilling finally rendered, a tip of the hat is due the Bush Justice Department, which was relentless in its prosecution. Fears were raised early in the Enron scandal that President Bush, an acknowledged friend of "Kenny Boy" Lay and who accepted thousands of dollars in Lay political donations might interfere in the government's case. That didn't occur, happily.

Plundering Enron was but the most monumental example of vulgar, widespread corruption that has poisoned commerce and government in recent years.

Venal executives and politicians had a sense of invincibility and an almost regal entitlement to plunder for their comforts, perhaps convinced that law enforcement would be spotty and lax and risks of being caught therefore would be slight.

So, does the FBI's commendable record of more than 2,000 public corruption investigations in recent years and the spate of corporate CEOs taking the perp walk in handcuffs enroute to the slammer suggest that society finally is serious about striking at rot in the public place?

And will this discourage embryonic crooks-in-waiting? We shall see.

Heretofore, society has had a terrible record blotting out crime. But society can control wrongdoing and try to prevent its spread through proper laws, vigorous enforcement and certain punishment.

The best hope for maintaining a muscular assault on corruption is to elect officials who possess a lofty sense of ethical duty. Sadly, that line of defense against wrongdoing has revealed its own weak and sullied links.

However, this is an election year when voters could wisely forget narrow loyalties to red-state, blue-state doctrines, and commit themselves to candidates with loftier ideals of honesty and selfless statesmanship dedicated to the civic good.




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