Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Forever And Ever Ahmad

Yeah, right. Nobody knows nothing. Rummy says the press should talk to “the Iraqis,” because he has no idea what’s going on with his erstwhile good friend Chalabi.

There’s no need to reiterate everything that’s wrong with that crook Ahmad, but it should be remembered that Cheney himself approved Rummy’s plan to airlift Chalabi into the country a year ago, after Bush had explictly promised Tony Blair that it would not happen. As ye sow and all that crap…

It’s sad that Rummy’s lost touch with the fortunes of his former friend because he was once one of his strongest supporters. Those were the days.

I’ve read the various theories about what is really going on with this, and I have no opinion other than that the official explanation seems fairly believable to me. Not that Chalabi has a history of bank fraud or anything like that, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that he might have been taking just a little taste for himself after all the years of dining on bad hors d’ouvres in Georgetown salons for the good of the cause:

For several months, U.S. officials have been investigating people affiliated with the INC for possible ties to a scheme to defraud the Iraqi government during the transition to a new currency that took place from Oct. 15 last year to Jan. 15, according to a U.S. occupation authority official familiar with the case. The official said the raids were partly related to that investigation.

At the center of the inquiry is Nouri, whom Chalabi picked as the top anti-corruption official in the new Iraqi Finance Ministry. Chalabi heads the Governing Council’s finance committee, and has major influence in its staffing and operation.

When auditors early this year began counting the old Iraqi dinars brought in and the new Iraqi dinars given out in return, they discovered a shortfall of more than $22 million. Nouri, a German national, was arrested in April and faces 17 charges including extortion, fraud, embezzlement, theft of government property and abuse of authority. He is being held in a maximum security facility, according to three sources close to the investigation.

In recent weeks, several other Finance Ministry officials have been arrested as part of the investigation. A U.S. official familiar with the case said, “We are cracking down on corruption regardless of names involved.”

I won’t be surprised if there is more to it. Why, there might even be more embezzlement involved:

BLITZER: They found hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. $100 bills. They found other money. How much money do you suspect is still available to finance this insurgency?

CHALABI: There are hundreds of millions of dollars still unaccounted for from Saddam’s loot that he took from the Central Bank of Iraq. He looted the Central Bank. I have the records. He took $920 million in U.S. dollars, cash $100 bills, and he took $90 million euro from — that’s about $100 million now from the Central Bank of Iraq on the 19th of March. He sent a letter signed by him ordering the Central Bank government to give the money to his son from the account of the presidency.

This may be the largest cash withdrawal in history. He took all of this money, put it — it was already packed in crates of $4 million each, and it took three trucks to load the money in, and he took it. Most of that money is unaccounted for.

According to this post by The Angry Bear, Chalabi says he doesn’t need any more money.

Uhm Hmm. Imagine that.

Update: On the other hand —

Senior U.S. officials told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran.

The evidence shows that Chalabi personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, “get Americans killed.” The evidence is said to be “rock solid.”

Sources have told Stahl a high-level investigation is underway into who in the U.S. government gave Chalabi such sensitive information in the first place.

There is only one degree of separation between Chalabi and the deputy secretary of defense.

Loosen Your Corsets, Girls

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lashed out at President Bush on Thursday, saying his Iraq policies show incompetence and the only conclusion to draw is that “the emperor has no clothes.”

“I believe that the president’s leadership and the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience,” the California Democrat told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.

Oh, oh… I think I’m going to faint. This is such… it’s such… oh, I have to sit down…

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said the comments “represent a grotesque political attack. They’re simply outrageous and the American people will reject that type of blame America first. … American troops are bravely fighting the terrorist enemy and it is the terrorists who are responsible for the violence, not the president.”

Oh Edward, Edward…please make them stop the horrible hatred…

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement today in response to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s statement that ‘Bush is an incompetent leader,’ that the President has ‘no judgment, no experience and no knowledge’ and that he has the deaths of thousands of soldiers ‘on his shoulders.’

“To angry Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy, terrorists and militia aren’t responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers, their commander-in-chief is. And our servicemen and women, in putting torture chambers ‘under U.S. management,’ are no different than a regime that systematically tortured, raped and killed its own people. The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted Blame America First as their official policy. “

Oh my heavens … Blame America First! Does anyone have any burning feathers? I think I’m going blind…

Have mercy. Stop these San Francisco liberals from saying that our brave leader is incompetent. It’s unbearable to listen to!

This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts… Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice.

Dear God. Make them stop!

President Bush’s mantra of “stay the course” rings increasingly hollow in the face of abrupt policy reversals that reek of desperation. First the U.S. kept Baathists out of government; now it is inviting them back in. First it dissolved the Iraqi army; now it is re-creating it. First it sidelined the United Nations; now it is counting on the U.N. to form a new government.

Jeeves, my laudenum, poste haste. These Democrats are so evil, so cruel. I can listen no more…

I think it’s a total nightmare and disaster, and I’m ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it. It’s something I’ll never do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who’s smarter than I am, and I shouldn’t have done that. No. I want things to work out, but I’m enraged by it, actually.

“O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!”

Chutzpah Award Of The Millenium

Mickey Kaus says that Juan Cole is too “shrill” to be “completely reliable”

I knew there was something about Professor Cole that was shallow and partisan. Perhaps if he spent more time deconstructing the meaning of Ahmad Chalabis hair or skreeching hysterically over Paul Wolfowitz’s eyebrows, I might be persuaded to take him seriously.

Sacrifice This

I’m not a McCain worshipper. He’s way too right wing for me and I wouldn’t vote for him (unless it was between him and any other Republican.) But like many people, I can’t help liking the guy and it’s mostly because he seems to be completely unafraid of the GOP bullyboys. But then, he’s been tortured at the hands of tough guys that make the likes of Lil’ Tommy “isn’t that French?” DeLay look like a 6 week old kitten by comparison.

So, it was especially stomach churning to see “Doughboy” Denny Hastert and his posse of Beavis, Butthead, Dilbert and Elmer Fudd laughing and snorting as he lectured McCain about the sacrifices of the men and women at Walter Reed.

As other House GOP members stood behind him laughing, Hastert, R-Illinois, then expressed doubt that McCain was indeed a Republican.

The exchange started when a reporter asked: “Can I combine a two issues, Iraq and taxes? I heard a speech from John McCain the other day…”

Hastert: “Who?”

Reporter: “John McCain.”

Hastert: “Where’s he from?”

Reporter: “He’s a Republican from Arizona.”

Hastert: “A Republican?”

Amid nervous laughter, the reporter continued with his question: “Anyway, his observation was never before when we’ve been at war have we been worrying about cutting taxes and his question was, ‘Where’s the sacrifice?’ ”

Hastert: “If you want to see the sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda. There’s the sacrifice in this country. We’re trying to make sure they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And, at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong.”

Hastert, I believe, once sacrificed the two for one special at IHOP in favor of the RazzleDazzle Waffle Slam so he knows what he’s talking about.

During Vietnam though, like his owner Dick Cheney, Denny had other priorities. After getting his Masters in Gym in 1967, it was not for the Denster to join either the service or the unwashed war protestors. Denny, a fervent supporter of the war, believed that the best way for him to serve was in the vital national security role of drivers ed teacher. The nation honors his sacrifice.

Meanwhile, glory hog McCain, was sharing a few frat boy pranks with the North Vietnamese:

That is your final answer?” one of his interrogators, nicknamed the “Cat,” asked McCain on July 3, 1968 — not coincidentally the very day McCain’s father, John Sidney “Jack” McCain Jr., was named commander of U.S. naval forces in the Pacific.

“That is my final answer,” McCain said.

“They taught you too well,” said an irate Cat. “They taught you too well.”

Added another interrogator, the “Rabbit”: “Now, McCain, it will be very bad for you.”

And it was. One of his captors, the one they called “Slopehead,” told McCain, “You’re a black criminal. You must confess your crimes.”

McCain demurred. “Fuck you,” he said.

“Why do you treat your guards so disrespectfully?” Slopehead asked. “Because they treat me like an animal,” McCain replied.

“When I said that,” McCain wrote in U.S. News, “the guards, who were all in the room — about 10 of them — really laid into me. They bounced me from pillar to post, kicking and laughing and scratching. After a few hours of that, ropes were put on me and I sat that night bound with ropes … For the next four days, I was beaten every two or three hours by different guards. My left arm was broken again and my ribs were cracked.”

On the third night, as McCain would later write in “Faith of My Fathers,” he was beaten so badly he almost committed suicide before “confessing” his war crimes:

I lay in my own blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move. The Prick [another captor] came in with two other guards, lifted me to my feet, and gave me the worst beating I had yet experienced … Despairing of any relief from pain and further torture, and fearing the close reproach of my moment of dishonor, I tried to take my life. I doubt I really intended to kill myself. But I couldn’t fight anymore, and I remember deciding that the last thing I could do to make them believe I was still resisting, that I wouldn’t break, was to attempt suicide.

McCain took off his shirt. He turned over the waste bucket and stepped on it. He looped his shirt through a shutter. But before he could act, the Prick ran in and beat him up.

One day later, McCain signed a confession admitting to war crimes. He would remain a POW for almost five more years, until March 15, 1973. His injuries are still with him; he cannot raise his arms above his shoulders; he still has a slight limp.

If visiting Walter Reed doesn’t sufficiently remind him of sacrifice maybe he could just try to comb his hair.

I make no excuses for McCain’s racist nicknames, but I do cut him some slack for the hatred. It’s probably what kept him alive. However, it must also be noted that unlike his immature GOP brethren, he was man enough to put the past behind him and he and John Kerry went on to engineer the rapprochement with Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Denny and the boys, still angry and nursing their wounds from 4th grade dodge ball, are today using young Americans as board pieces in their little game of “I am too a real man!” and it’s destroying this country.

Losing Their Religion

Among other wonderful observations in a great post, Josh Marshall notices the Great Wingnut Meltdown and writes:

Let’s be a little more clear about what’s going on here. Having led the country perilously close to humiliation and defeat, the architects of the war want to shift the blame for what’s happened to their opponents who either said the whole thing was a mistake in the first place or criticized the incompetence of its execution as it unfolded. They take the blame, the moral accountability, by ‘wishing’ for a bad result. That at least is Podhoretz’s reasoning.

If ever there was an example of moral up-is-downism, this is it. And claiming that their political opponents — liberal, in Podhoretz’s usage here, is just a catch-all — want defeat and humiliation for their country is certainly the most gutterish sort of slander there is.

There’s something almost uncomfortable about watching the mix of desperation, panicked zeal and projection evidenced in Podhoretz’s column. It’s like the pornography of watching someone beg for his life or shift the blame onto someone else when they’ve been caught in the act — with the added twist of spasms of aggression mixed in. But on a broader level, it’s in character. Not for Podhoretz — this isn’t at all directed at him as a person — but for the movement, the crew, he’s part of and is trying to defend.

Smug or rabid. There is no in between.

This is the first time that the “conservative movement” has held the reins of power and they have not done well. Filled with hubris, dazzled by naive Leninist dorm room dreams, these people have proven that they are incapable of leading a great nation responsibly and competently. They are good at money politics, and they could win the next election — but the “movement” is dead.

The New Left went through something like this back in the 70’s. Luckily, we were only in our 20’s at the time so it wasn’t as ugly and depressing as watching a bunch of flaccid, middle aged adolescents lose their twisted idealism. This isn’t natural.

I wonder if they’ll be having the Conservative Prom this year or if they will they finally graduate. Let’s hope they opt for maturity. It’s long overdue.

Warrior Message

Blumenthal has an interesting update on General Aimee Semple McBoykin in tonight’s Salon. I was aware that he was Cambones very own GI Joe, but I didn’t know until now that he personally went to Cuba to tell Miller to Gitmo-ize the mud-people over in Eye-Rack.

Saving Gen. William ‘Jerry’ Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October. After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals, preaching that the United States was in a holy war as a ‘Christian nation’ battling ‘Satan,’ the furor was quickly calmed.

[…]

Boykin was not removed or transferred. At that moment, in fact, he was at the center of the secret operation to “Gitmo-ize” Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. He had flown to Guantánamo (known as “Gitmo”) in Cuba, where he met with the commandant of Camp X-Ray, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, ordering him to extend his methods to the Iraq prison system, orders that had come from Rumsfeld. While Boykin weathered his public storm, he remained the operational officer overseeing Miller’s new assignment.

[…]

Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right. He allied himself with a small group known as the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism. Its manifesto, “Warrior Message,” summons “warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world … God has given us the stewardship and accountability of FAITH as our strategy for this time to mobilize an exceedingly great army.”

As the head of the Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C., Boykin invited Southern Baptist ministers for prayer meetings that would be highlighted by demonstrations of Special Forces hand-to-hand combat and guided tours of the “Shoot House” and “Snake Room.”

Boykin staged a traveling slide show in which he displayed pictures of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein around the country. “Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army,” he preached. “Why do they hate us? The answer to that is because we’re a Christian nation. We are hated because we are a nation of believers.” They “will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.” It was the reportage of his remarks at one such revival in Oregon that made him a subject of brief controversy. But public relations handling rescued him so that he could pursue his job, including turning up the heat at Abu Ghraib.

So, they sent this crazy, fucked-up Christian crusader to whip the Muslim heathens into shape.

Terry Southern and Stanley Kubrick must be laughing hysterically right now, wherever they are. It can’t get any more absurd than this.

Can it?

American As Rotten Apple Pie

Following up the story I posted about yesterday, EditorandPublisher has this:

E&P today obtained from Reuters a report submitted to the company’s senior editors in mid-January, less than two weeks after the journalists were detained, by Bureau Chief Andrew Marshall, who had interviewed the three staffers separately. The Reuters employees are Salem Ureibi, who has worked for the company since 1991, mainly as a cameraman; Ahmad Mohammad al-Badrani, who has worked with Reuters on a freelance basis since July 2003, shooting video; and Sattar Jabar al-Badrani, a driver.

Marshall observed in his report, ‘It should be noted that the bulk of their mistreatment — including their humiliating interrogations and the mental and physical torment of the first night which all agreed was the worst part of their ordeal — occurred several hours AFTER I had informed the 82nd Airborne Division that they were Reuters staff. I have e-mail proof of this.’

Reuters also made available to E&P about two dozen pages of transcripts of Marshall’s interviews with the three staffers on Jan. 8.

Here are excerpts from Marshall’s report:

‘When the soldiers approached them they were standing by their car, a blue Opel. Salem Uraiby shouted ‘Reuters, Reuters, journalist, journalist.’ At least one shot was fired into the ground close to them.

‘They were thrown to the ground and soldiers placed guns to their heads. Their car was searched. Soldiers found their camera equipment and press badges and discovered no weapons of any kind. Their hands were cuffed behind their backs and they were thrown roughly into a Humvee where they lay on the floor. …

‘After half an hour to an hour they were transferred to a larger armored vehicle. Ahmad and Sattar (along with NBC stringer Ali who I have yet to formally interview) were thrown on the floor under the seats. …

“Once they arrived at the U.S. base (this was FOB Volturno near Fallujah) they were kept in a holding area with around 40 other prisoners in a large room with several open windows. It was bitterly cold. They were given one blanket between two. All were interrogated separately at different times and the worst treatment they suffered was on the first night when for several hours (they believe it was from around midnight until dawn) all of them were put in a room together and subjected to hours of abuse.

“Bags were alternately placed on their heads and taken off again. Deafening music was played on loudspeakers directly into their ears and they were told to dance around the room. Sometimes when they were doing this, soldiers would shine very bright torches directly into their eyes and hit them with the torches. They were told to lie on the floor and wiggle their backsides in the air to the music. They were told to do repeated press ups and to repeatedly stand up from a crouching position and then return to the crouching position.

“Soldiers would move between them, whispering things in their ear. Ahmad and Sattar did not understand what was whispered. Salem says they whispered that they wanted to have sex with him and were saying “come on, just for two minutes.”T hey also said he should bring his wife so they could have sex with her. …

“Soldiers would whisper in their ears “One, two, three…” and then shout something loudly right beside their ear. All of this went on all night. … Ahmad said he collapsed by morning. Sattar said he collapsed after Ahmad and began vomiting. …

“When they were taken individually for interrogation, they were interrogated by two American soldiers and an Arab interpreter. All three shouted abuse at them. They were accused of shooting down the helicopter. Salem, Ahmad and Sattar all reported that for their first interrogation they were told to kneel on the floor with their feet raised off the floor and with their hands raised in the air.

“If they let their feet or hands drop they were slapped and shouted at. Ahmad said he was forced to insert a finger into his anus and lick it. He was also forced to lick and chew a shoe. For some of the interrogation tissue paper was placed in his mouth and he had difficulty breathing and speaking. Sattar too said he was forced to insert a finger into his anus and lick it. He was then told to insert this finger in his nose during questioning, still kneeling with his feet off the ground and his other arm in the air. The Arab interpreter told him he looked like an elephant. …

“Ahmad and Sattar both said that they were given badges with the letter ‘C’ on it. They did not know what the badges meant but whenever they were being taken from one place to another in the base, if any soldier saw their badge they would stop to slap them or hurl abuse.

What was that inspiring saying I heard again?

Oh yes.

“I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country’s gift to the world. Freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help spread that freedom.”

After 30 years under Saddam, I just don’t know how much more “freedom” these poor bastards can take.

I think the saddest thing about all this is that once again we raised these people’s hopes that we were coming to rescue them. That makes us even crueler than Saddam in some ways. Under him they didn’t have any dreams. We, on the other hand, encouraged them to dream and then crushed them. Laughing in their faces while we did it.

Boys Crying Wolf

Atrios has a great post up today, featuring the long lost Mighty Mighty Reason Man, about Instapundit and his gang’s early retreat to threats of force when things don’t go their way.

Instapundit: (Via alicublog)

Freedom of the press, as it exists today (and didn’t exist, really, until the 1960s) is unlikely to survive if a majority — or even a large and angry minority — of Americans comes to conclude that the press is untrustworthy and unpatriotic. How far are we from that point?

Gosh, I don’t know. But just as soon as I get over the whiplash, I’ll give it some thought. After all, just over a year ago, when the media slobbered like a bunch of 2 dollar hookers over Dear Leader’s codpiece on that aircraft carrier, they were being extremely patriotic and trustworthy. I don’t know what the hell has happened to them. Maybe we should ask Eliot Abrams if Sy Hersh is the anti-Christ.

Atrios also quotes Newties former flak, and current editorial whore for the Washington Times, Tony Blankley, saying:

It is heartbreaking, though no longer perplexing, that the president’s political and media opposition want the president’s defeat more than America’s victory. But that is the price we must pay for living in a free country. (Sedition laws almost surely would be found unconstitutional, currently — although things may change after the next terrorist attack in America.)

Isn’t that sweet yet sad? It’s heartbreaking … On the other hand, blowjobs were also such threats to the country that we had to use the nuclear constitutional option of impeachment, so there doesn’t seem to be much that isn’t cause for putting the jackboot on the neck if that’s what it takes to make America free. (Certainly, it’s nothing that a little harmless forced sex couldn’t cure, eh Tony?)

What’s happening here is entirely predictable because modern Republicans are demented children. They have two modes — smug and rabid. When things are going well for them politically, they are unbearably arrogant, shoving it in everyone’s faces, ungraciously lording it over all concerned. When things go badly they instantly begin foaming at the mouth and escalate rapidly into a psychotic break.

The thing to remember is that their threats and tantrums are real but usually ineffective in the long run — but they often have the unfortunate salutary effect of cowing the press, who are a bunch of prissy little sissies.

The Reason Man says:

It’s as if I stood on a street corner screaming about the malevolence of the homeless, and then asked a homeless guy how long he thought he would survive if a large mob bent on hanging winos were to suddenly form in the vicinity.

How, then, can this be interpreted as anything other than “how long before the people I represent use their influence to forcibly ‘balance’ the news”?

It can’t, and they know it. They use this intimidation technique all the time.

One perfect of example of this phenomenon is the Florida Recount. Underlying all the legal mumbo jumbo and the behind the scenes maneuvering, lay a palpable nervousness in the media. Their daily refrain was, “hurry, hurry, hurry — the country is getting impatient,” “so far, there are no tanks in the streets, so at least we can be grateful for that,” even though polls showed that the people weren’t particularly in a hurry and were too riveted to their televisions to contemplate revolution. But the Greenfields’s and the Williams’s and the Matthews’s were constantly referring to some dark possibility of civil insurrection if things didn’t wrap up quickly.

They weren’t dreaming, they were just taking Republicans at their word. Bush’s team was down there in Florida ginning up the emotion, hysterically accusing little old ladies of “diviiiiining the will of the voters,” pounding down doors in mock riots, appearing on television shows and ranting delusionally about the Democrats stealing the election. (William Bennett on Capital Gang became so red-faced I thought he was having a heart attack.) The freepers sent in their goons to shout at the VP residence to “get out of Cheney’s house!” Tom DeLay said quite openly that he would not allow Al Gore to take the presidency. Justice Scalia hinted darkly at civic upheaval if Bush didn’t get his way.

The public, reasonably, were unimpressed. After all, the Republicans had been in high dudgeon over something or other for years. From haircuts to travel agents to Chinese espionage to Lincoln Bedroom to cattle futures to blowjobs and state troopers and wagging the dog, Republicans were always foaming at the mouth. What wasn’t a threat to the republic with these people?

But, the press continued to respond as if each GOP meltdown means that there are going to be riots in the streets, apparently led by a bunch of paunchy middle aged men in ill fitting suits who never got laid when they were young, never went to war, never made a team or played in a rock band so their dreams of masculine glory remain unfulfilled well into their 50’s.

Whether it will work again is up for grabs. After suffering under more than three years of smarmy, unctuous GOP “success” even the media may have reached a point where they find it preferable to have these people raving from the sidelines. Their impotent threats of revolution are clearly far less harmful than their proven incompetence at governing.

Kenny Boy and Grandma Millie

Before I forget

Enron Corp. employees spoke of “stealing” up to $2 million a day from California during the 2000-01 energy crisis and suggested that their market-gaming ploys would be presented to top management, possibly including Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay, according to documents released Monday.

The evidence of apparent scheming — in one recorded conversation, traders brag about taking money from “Grandma Millie” in California — is in a filing by a utility in Snohomish County, Wash.

[…]

While it has long been established that Enron engaged in market-gaming tactics — two top traders have pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges for manipulating California’s energy market and a third awaits trial — the 450 pages of recorded conversations provide another vivid look into the organization’s exploitive subculture.

They also suggest that knowledge of alleged wrongdoing may have reached the level of Skilling, Enron’s former chief executive, and Lay, the former chairman.

In a Sept. 14, 2000, conversation, an employee named “Sue” from Enron’s governmental affairs operation checks in with a trader named “Bob” for information that could be used in an in-house presentation to corporate executives.

“This is the time of year when government affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling,” Sue said, according to the transcript.

The Snohomish utility identified Sue as Susan J. Mara, Enron’s California director of regulatory affairs until December 2001, when she and thousands of others lost their jobs as the result of Enron’s financial collapse.

In talking with Bob, whose identity couldn’t immediately be learned, Mara touts Enron’s success in delaying a lowering of energy price caps by state officials.

Then, still seeking helpful material for the planned executive presentation, she asks: “Do you know when you started overscheduling load and making buckets of money on that?”

Overscheduling load — a tactic that Enron traders famously dubbed “Fat Boy” — involved purposely overstating how much electricity would be needed in the future, creating the appearance of power shortages and leading to inflated prices.

Mara, who is now an energy consultant, said Monday that the recorded conversation came about as she gathered information for a budget presentation to be made to executives at corporate headquarters in Houston. “We had to show what our accomplishments were for the year,” she said.

Mara said she didn’t recall what the final presentation contained or which executives heard it. The presentation was not prepared expressly for Skilling and Lay, she said, even though her statement in the recorded conversation implied that they would hear it.

The trading tactics discussed on the recording weren’t considered illegal or manipulative by Enron, Mara added.

[…]

Federal prosecutors in February brought a range of fraud charges against Skilling for his actions when he was at the helm at Enron, but none was related to trading in the California market. Lay has not been charged.

In a different conversation in the transcripts, Enron’s West Coast trading chief, Timothy N. Belden, discusses the profitability of the company’s strategies in California, particularly those executed by a trading desk led by Jeffrey S. Richter:

“Well he makes … between one and two [million] a day, which never shows up on any curve shift…. He steals money from California to the tune of about a million — ”

At this point the other speaker interrupts, asking Belden to rephrase what he just said.

“OK,” Belden says. “He, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day.”

We were told by President Cheney that the problem was too many environmental regulations. They screwed Grandma Millie and then blamed it on Gray Davis.

Say what you will about Republican competence, but they are really good at screwing people over. I’d go so far as to say they’re gifted.

The Hit Man

When Nixonites go bad.

This guy wrote the book. He will be reprising his role as GOP character assassin in a state near you over the next few months, you can bet on it.