The coming fiasco in the California Recall is going to be, IMHO, an unusually literal example of the expression "they can't tell the truth to save their own lives."

The California Democrats are in a perfect position to expose Bush-Cheney for what they really are: gangsters & looters, intent on destabilizing & destroying democratic institutions. The only pretext offered by the rightwing to justify the Calif Recall is the budget fiasco. There are 2 main factors that created the budget deficit: the popping of the high-tech bubble, & the raiding of the Calif Treasury in 2001 by Enron & Reliant -- which was DIRECTLY ABETTED by Bush & Cheney, who went to bat for their Enron pals.

I'm sitting here in the Bay Area, & just watched all the Sunday talk shows. NOT A SINGLE DEMOCRAT dared to get anywhere near this subject of the Enron-Bush link, in explaining the $38 billion Calif budget deficit.

Are we going to see a repeat exhibition of the Democratic cowardice witnessed in the face of the Stolen Election, where the filthiest & most antidemocratic tactics are used to deprive Democrats of legally won high office -- and where the Dems themselves don't have the guts to expose the dirty dealings? I believe we will.

In 2001, the Democrats did not accuse Bush of "stealing the election." Rather, the Republicans publicly accused GORE of trying to steal the election -- and the Democrats generally failed to counter this outrageous standing of reality on its head, despite the fact that all the evidence was on their side.

In the current Calif Recall, it would be a simple matter to prove that Bush & Cheney helped Enron rip off the state for tens of billions of dollars in 2001. But if the party is too frightened to pose that direct a challenge to Bush -- if they lack the courage & truthfulness to expose the looting of 2001 in the current campaign (perhaps calculating that "attacks on the president might backfire," or some similar rationalization for failing to bring out the heavy artillery) -- we may well see Governor Schwarzenegger in 8 weeks, elected with 25% of the vote.

I can just imagine the pow-wows going on among Democratic Party bigwigs in Washington today. I would bet that the subject has been raised, "Well, should we talk about Enron and Bush?" And the Dem strategists, and the famous gutless "moderates," are doubtless saying, "No, no, we could get in a lot of trouble if we raise that issue. The Republicans could accuse us of unfairly attacking the president in a time of war. They could paint us as unpatriotic. Let's STAY THE HELL AWAY from that issue -- it could blow up in our faces."

If the Dems follow this advice, they will lose, and they will deserve to lose. It will one day be said of them, "They couldn't tell the truth to save their own lives."

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Not that I'd claim expertise here, but the costs imposed on CA by the manipulation of the energy companies would appear to have contributed to the budget deficit at least to some degree if this is accurate:

"In addition, state officials imposed severe budget cuts due to a rise in energy costs from $7 billion in 1999 to $27 billion in 2000, and after laying out $6 billion to buy daily power and another $40 billion to secure long-term contracts and stabilize the state’s energy supply."

I guess one could argue the resulting budget cuts the expenditures necessitated reduced the energy companies' contribution to the debt, but the cuts would probably have been made anyway given the bust of the tech boom.

This issue, I think is persuasive. The budget deficit can in part be tied to Enron et al and it's hard for me to see why we should let the matter slide.

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And Yet Another link RE: ENRON AND CHENEY/BUSH:
"In April of 2001, Ken Lay handed Dick Cheney a two-page memorandum recommending national energy policy changes. The memo contained Enron’s positions on specific, rather technical issues, which were presented as a “fix” for the California crisis. (Enron brazenly advised the administration not to place price caps on energy, which would be precisely the request California officials made to the President, and which the President and the Vice President would just as brazenly deny until public pressure forced them to capitulate.)

According to a special report prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman, over seventeen energy policies recommended by Enron made their way into the official White House National Energy Policy report.

How could the author and the editors have inserted an accurate assessment of the causes of the California energy fraud in May 2001 without having inside knowledge and or without being part of the scam, when it took the FERC two years of investigation to release virtually the same findings as those published in the national energy report?"

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Anyone who reads the papers knows that Davis begged Bush & Cheney to allow the imposition of price caps on energy in the spring of '01. Everyone knows Bush arrogantly refused -- this was front-page in the LA Times in the spring of that year.

LA Times, July 16 2002:
"...Now comes the smoking gun, the Enron internal memos disclosed by FERC that show clear evidence of market manipulation. The documents indicate that not only Enron, but other companies were fleecing Californians by driving up prices and triggering blackouts....

And: greenleaf-publishing.com page 6:
"Yet public records confirm that on 17 April 2001, for example, then chief executive
officer (CEO) of Enron, Kenneth Lay, made eight recommendations to Vice President
Cheney regarding federal energy policy. One of those recommendations was continued
opposition to price caps. A memo containing those recommendations was released the
week of 20 March 2002. On 18 April 2001—the very next day—Cheney told The Los
Angeles Times that the White House emphatically opposed price caps..."

The first of these items establishes that Enron ripped off California -- a point that no one really disputes. The second item establishes that Cheney & Bush helped them do it.

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corpwatch.org
"Energy traders for Enron used elaborate schemes with nicknames like "Death Star" and "Get Shorty" to manipulate California's electricity market and boost profits, according to internal company memos released by federal regulators Monday."

The memos -- jaw-dropping in their frank descriptions of how a sophisticated operation exploited California for financial gain -- enraged consumer advocates and state officials and prompted Sen. Dianne Feinstein to call for a federal criminal investigation of the company's behavior as the lights went out in California.

A state senator who has spent a year investigating the energy crisis called the documents "tremendous" proof that California's power debacle had been caused by companies looking to make money and not by energy shortages.

"The veneer has been broken," said Sen. Joseph Dunn, D-Santa Ana...."
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FOI: HERE
"One of the deepest mysteries in the collapse of Enron has been the role that the power crisis in California played in the company's rise and fall.

This spring, as authorities focused their attention on the off-balance-sheet partnerships that Enron used to inflate its profits, it seemed that the question might be forever buried under more pressing inquiries.

Now, though, newly released documents about Enron's practices during the crisis in 2000 and 2001 are causing regulators and prosecutors to re-examine the connection. Some outside experts say they may find that California played a crucial role in the company's demise.

Fallout from the documents — memorandums that appear to offer the first proof that Enron deliberately manipulated California's energy market — widened yesterday. Federal regulators demanded that other power trading companies acknowledge whether they used strategies similar to those mentioned in the documents, while the secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White, who has already been criticized for his role as a former Enron executive, faced a new call to resign from Public Citizen, a liberal public interest group...."

FOLKS, GRAY DAVIS IS NOT THE PROBLEM. THE BUSH AND CHENEY AND ENRON ADMINISTRATION ARE - PUT THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS AND KEEP DAVIS IN OFFICE - HE'S TRYING TO GO AFTER THESE CROOKS AND THAT'S ONE REASON WHY THEY WANT HIM OUT.

WE SHOULD BE DOING MORE IMPORTANT WORK - LIKE IMPEACHING THE ENTIRE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND TRYING THEM BEFORE A WORLD COURT.

DEMOCRATS! GROW A SPINE ALREADY - THEY ARE HANDING YOU A FREE PASS, TAKE IT!

Symbolman at Take Back the Media.