Enron Corp. brought out the worst in parts of its talented work force. Now it's bringing out the worst in congressional politicians.
Roll Call, a weekly Capitol Hill newspaper, reports that 11 congressional committees and subcommittees are investigating Enron. It might be a record.
Wouldn't a single, focused committee do a better and faster job of fact-finding than the scramble under way?
Of course it would. But fact-finding isn't the goal.
The goal is publicity for committee and subcommittee chairs and sidekick inquisitors.
Enron is easy prey. A dark embodiment of the corporate stereotype has slumped under the weight of its own excesses, ready to be spanked on television.
Consider this scolding by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) of former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay during a Senate committee hearing, reported in Roll Call and elsewhere: "I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair to carnival barkers. A carny will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game."
Adults serious about learning what they must to address a complex issue don't act that way.
Lay and his former management team owe past and present Enron employees and investors, business in general, and the public answers to many questions.
Lawmakers and regulators owe the public reasoned repairs to a system that let Enron spin so far out of control for so long. Reasoned repairs don't often emerge from self-serving theatrics.
Where were the indignant investigators when Enron executives were angrily brushing off questions from perplexed investment analysts?
Enron's labyrinthine accounting is no sudden revelation. Its shuttling of properties among mass-produced affiliates occurred on the record. Exposure to huge risk was inherent in its operations.
There was plenty to arouse official suspicion while Enron's public relations story still worked-which it didn't with everyone.
Where were official inquisitors when timely disclosures that the analysts couldn't pry out of Enron might have prevented the ultimate collapse?
They weren't interested in facts then. Opportunistic incivility makes them seem scarcely more interested in facts now.
(Online Apr. 12, 2002; author's e-mail: [email protected].)
