Cheney The Corporate Crook

In a few months time, Ken Lay, boss of Enron, will try to claim that he was unaware of the financial tomfoolery that was going on below him. No-one with a brain will believe him. If Lay could somehow prove that he was in the dark, that would show nothing but the grossest incompetence on the part of the company's highest officer. However, the Bush Administration's Justice Department will prove with some ease that it was impossible for Lay, in his position, not to know what was going on.

What is interesting, though, is that the self-same Justice Department has and will do nothing about the same knowledge or incompetence on the part of Dick Cheney. According to a plea agreement between Halliburton and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company admitted that, when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton in the 1990s, the company "materially mislead" investors, shareholders and regulators. The company for which Dick Cheney was clearly responsible, misstated its earnings in just two years by more than $210 million. Again according to the SEC, the misstatements turned a year-over-year earning decline of 4.5% in Halliburton's Energy Services Group into a 24% increase. Of course, a decline in earnings -- causing a slip in share price -- was the last thing Halliburton or Cheney needed while they were trying to complete their purchase of Dresser Industries with bloated Halliburton stock.

Two lower level officers are taking the rap, falling on their swords presumably to protect the Vice President. I'm sure they have been and will continue to be well compensated for their favour. But the silence from the SEC and the Justice Department is deafening.