Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A cheap political show

Friday, Feb. 15, 2002 | 10:02 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

THE LATE NEVADA U.S. SEN. Alan Bible was always a gentleman when conducting a hearing. No cheap shots or grandstanding was done when he was in charge. He never joined in the fun and games some chairmen think are necessary as they berate some poor lower-level bureaucrat appearing before a committee. For this reason, Bible had a warm relationship with the men and women who do the heavy lifting that helps government better serve the nation.

I was thinking about Bible when watching some senators flay and fillet Enron's former chief executive, Kenneth L. Lay. Here was a guy who had made known he wasn't going to answer questions and was going to use the Fifth Amendment as allowed by the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, he had placed himself in a position where he couldn't defend himself from snide personal attacks.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., should have had more class than he exhibited when saying: "Well, much has been said about the development of a culture of corporate corruption, but there's also the culture of political corruption. And maybe we can get some good out of this whole situation, in that there's no better example than 'Kenny Boy' than cash-and-carry government."

Sen. Peter F. Fitzgerald, R-Ill., showed even less class, when showing off for the voters back home. Because he is a rookie in the Senate there may be some excuse for Fitzgerald publicly gutting Lay with: "Mr. Lay, I've concluded that you're perhaps the most accomplished confidence man since Charles Ponzi. I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair to carnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America." Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Lay or the other executives of Enron. In fact, two months ago this column recommended that prosecutors, not Congress, should be on the trail of the people who promoted and profited from this scam. Business executive James Freeman, writing in the Wall Street Journal, eve n earlier had recommended that congressional hearings be canceled and prosecutors take over.

Bringing Lay before the committee was a useless gesture, because he provided no information. I recall, when working in the Senate, that many times people taking the Fifth Amendment were not called forward. There was no need to waste valuable time when the purpose of gaining information wouldn't be realized. So why the unnecessary dog-and-pony show run by Hollings? It provided an opportunity for many of the senators to clean their political skirts back home by using Lay as a punching bag.

The only senators of the 23-member committee not receiving political contributions from Enron were five Democrats and Republican Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine. The Democrats were Barbara Boxer of California, Max Cleland of Georgia, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina. So, for 17 senators, the hearing might have been worthwhile. It had little more value other than allowing a few senators to display their bad manners and their eagerness to bully a dead man walking while his daughter sat behind him in the hearing room.

Yes, Hollings and Fitzgerald have both received campaign money from Enron and that company's auditor, Arthur Andersen.