Headline of the Week: Bush pushes for business ethics
Last week was a rough one for Dubya. First, the ongoing corporate scandals began tanking the stock market — bad enough. In the meantime, the whole sordid mess emboldened the normally timid press to point out that Bush benefited during his business career from the same kind of wink-and-look-the-other-way sweet deals the public is now reacting to with anger and disgust.
Fans of an independent press shouldn’t get too excited, perhaps, as national TV newscasters parroted Bush’s claim that he had been “cleared by the S.E.C.” in regards to his sale of stock in his own Harken oil company. The fact is that even though the S.E.C. opted not to prosecute Bush, it found that he had violated the law at least four times.
In any case, things got worse for Dubya over the weekend. The New York Times reported on Saturday, July 13 that Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, the proposed leader of Bush’s new task force on corporate crime, is a former director of Providian Financial Corp., a credit card company that, during his tenure, had to pay over $400 million to settle charges of consumer and securities fraud (i.e., price gouging its customers).
The Times also reported on Saturday that VP Dick Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, is making a killing off the war on terrorism. Not only that, Cheney stands to profit from a war he has a hand in conducting. When Cheney retired as CEO of Halliburton to run for Vice President, the company awarded him a $20 million retirement package. The company made it clear that it was their legal right to increase the size of that package at any time to any amount they desired. In other words, Halliburton can give Dick Cheney as much money as they want whenever they want as long as it’s earmarked as part of his “retirement package.” Sounds convenient for everybody. Although this development isn’t directly connected to the current book-cooking scandals, it’s nonetheless another example of what can only be called very lax ethical standards among the US corporate elite.
In view of all the available public info about Bush’s inordinately cozy ties to Corporate America (or as reporter David Corn calls it, “Bush’s home district”), the headline noted at left struck us as surreal. Here’s a guy who made his fortune by parlaying his family name into millions of bucks while running businesses into the ground. His most famous move — selling his stock in his own company just before its value tanked — is the kind of corporate malfeasance he now says is disgraceful. In any case, the headline brought to mind other headlines of equally ludicrous hypocrisy. Such as. . .
Hitler encourages ethnic diversity
O.J Simpson leads fight against domestic violence
Mayor Pat McCrory supports ban on empty suits running for office
Osama bin Laden urges crackdown on flight schools
Jesse Helms says critics “should get off gays’ butts.”
Cher urges women to reject cosmetic surgery
KKK Grand Dragon condemns “the curse of racism”
Rep. Sue Myrick calls for prosecution of adulterers
Nixon requires White House employee lie detector tests
Marion Barry pushes crackdown on drugs
This article appears in Jul 17-23, 2002.
