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Notes From Enron Hearings before/after Notes From The Enron Congressional Hearings--House Energy and Commerce Subcomittee Hearings 3:30 pm est Jeff Skilling- former enron president and ceo, coo.--poised behind stack of microphones, polished. Radiates big city, big time. Answers are generally precise, fumbles on details purposefully to buy time for answers. Maintains everything was accurately represented, and in good shape when he left, setting Ken Lay up for the fall. Rep Bart Stupak- (d) MI, took no money from Enron $0, carefully builds platform and draws a trap. Gawky looking and hickish twang clearly annoys Skilling. Stupak his facts straight, but gets nowhere. Back country sound to his voice seemed to throw Skilling, Big City vs. Backwoods. Cnn flashes amounts each politician received from Enron when their time begins--makes for a cynical backdrop Rep Billy Tauzin- Comes on like a bulldog. Louisiana. $1964 from Enron. Trying to bully Skilling into giving up something. No artifice. Skilling keeps composure, Robert Jaedeke interjects, look much like a corpse already, skin hanging off of bones, makes pointless point. Empty Enron Suit, Board of Directors, Dean of Graduate Business School(??) at Stanford. Asking questions of this man is much like watching a junkie trying to pick a flat, uncooperative vein. Tauzin Testimony coming off like a scolding from a high school principal. Nothing accomplished. The real meat of the scandal, what took place in the white house, will never be touched. Simple rehashing of well known facts. 3:45 p.m., Tauzin starting in on Jaedeke again, dissecting internal doccuments, memos, meeting minutes, to support points that are already widely published truths. Nothing new. Window dressing. Skilling first showing signs of getting flustered, alludes to pressure of his position currently, and at the time. Perhaps Tauzin's bulldog tactic is working. 3:50 Skilling regains poise, directing attention througout documents, back in form Rep Diana Degette, (d) CO, $0 dollars from Enron--Change of pace. Skilling looks confused, but pedantically repeats same point repeatdly, of no recall of meeting she accuses him of being a part of for LJM funds, and shifts blame to other Enron execs not present who took the fifth. Skilling talks down to Degette. Possible chauvist, and has balls to interrupt her while she's speaking, something one should not do in a congressional hearing. Talking over her. Perhaps Skilling thinks he's big city big time above all of this. 4:00 pm --I break for a bowl of ice cream. French Vanilla, breyer's ice cream, smuckers sundae syrup (caramel), hershey's syrup (chocolate) It occurs to me that this dry, pointless testimony will have no political legs for the democrats in the mid-term elections until it is linked to the Bush administration, when the indescretions and spoils system of campaign finance are revealed in the form of cross dressing Enron suits posing as government beaureacrats. 4:05 pm. Rep. Cliff Stearns, (r) florida.$500 dollars, pointless, dry, go nowhere questioning Rep Bobby Rush, (d) illinois, $1000, Starts in on supporting cast, Jadeike, Winokour Jr, meandering inquisition. Stonewalled. Both seem quite pleased at their initial efforts to stonewall. Happy lackies. Rush has aide whispering over his shoulder the whole time. Strikes to his credibility and impact. Some of the drift of the questioning from Rush and others, seem to be an attempt to get Skilling to implicate the other executives who took the fifth, and Skilling seems to be haltingly complying, minimizing his role. All other lines of questioning seem to end with "I do not recall." Rep Chris John,(d) louisiana $2000 Enron, $5,500 Arthur Andersen Consulting- More aggressive inquisitioning. Peppers with questions, but gets nowhere. Spends too much time on his soapbox. Gets nowhere. 4:20 p.m. :) Rep Gene Green (d) Texas, $3500, Immediately starts in moralistically, but has yet to make a point. Wonder if the $3500 and Texan ties have anything to do with it. Has lost a lot of steam. Seems to be using kid gloves in a strange tough love sort of way. Texan twang. Winokour Jr. says "Chewco" in his testimony. Something strangely amusing and horrific about this, as it relates to the massive screwing of the American People. I always liked chewbacca. Rep. Edward Markey (d) $6500 Massacheusets--keeps up the pressure. Starting to look like the grilling that its supposed to be, but ultimately a pagentry for the benefit of the people to deny the hypocrisy and corruption inherent in the system as it stands. Whores trying whores in a morality peice. Markey starts in belligerent, but Skilling cooly deflects his unctions. Skilling says something about taking a baseball bat to Fasteau, another exec who took the fifth, that Skilling has mentioned several times, seemingly more willing to set him up for the fall as well as Lay. Rep Henry Waxman (d) California. $0--Waxman looks like a withered bean counter and possible pedophile. Precise questioning, unfortunately quoting "Fortune" magazine. Open ended questions with no impact. Skilling walks away with Waxman's time, cooly outmanuvering him. Waxman looks befuddled, and suddenly, in reference to a "Fortune" magazine article, Skilling is a fountain of exact detail---conversations, dates, references. Waxman brings up that Skilliing called someone an "asshole" in reference to a reporter interrupting a conference call, raising a smattering of muffled laughs from the room. Skilling deflects this easily. 4:35 pm I'm getting tired of this go-nowhere do nothing bullshit, and I'm more interested than most. James Greenwood, Commitee Chairman (r) Pennsylvania $1000--enron $1300 Arthur Andersen Consulting, . Wandering questioning. White haired, weak looking type, making little sense, has yet to pose a question or make a point. Almost sounds like a dissed lover. Skilling dodges. 4:45--I break for the day.
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