American Politics Journal

Bring on the Projectionists!
GOP spinners, desperate to deflect Enron's taint, take Lay's Bush I White House sleepover and (...you guessed it!) blame it on Clinton
by Tamara Baker

Feb. 19, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP)

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her.
-- King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6

I'm sure you've heard it by now: Republicans trying to spin Enron on the gabfests by pretending that Ken Lay slept in the Lincoln Bedroom during Clinton's two terms in office.

Guess what? Just like Maureen Dowd's "gift registry", it's all phoney-baloney. Click here and here for the proof.

These two stories encompass everyone that spent the night in the White House and Camp David while Bill Clinton, our last duly elected by a majority of the voters, was in office. And Kenny Boy's name isn't among them.

This, besides being a classic Fauxgate, is yet another classic example of projectionism, GOP style. (And thanks go once again to the great Molly Ivins for first making that now well-established diagnosis.)

As anyone knows who watched Newt Gingrich depose House Speaker Jim Wright over a $55,000 book deal, then turn around and cash a book-deal check from Rupert Murdoch that was EIGHTY TIMES as large as Wright's was, the Republicans do this as naturally as breathing.

For, you see, Kenneth Lay did indeed spend the night at the White House -- but not on Bill Clinton's watch.

Nope, it was during the single term of George Herbert Walker Bush, the father of the current occupant, that Ken Lay -- who was a prominent fundraiser for the Bush 1988 team -- got to sleep at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Don't believe me? Well, check out the first two sentences of this:

During the administration of the first President George Bush, a new party fundraiser named Kenneth L. Lay was invited to spend the night at the White House. The sleepover was an early coup for the chairman of Enron Corp. and a harbinger of things to come.

Once again, dear reader, as with so many Republican claims -- such as "the Democrats are tax-and-spenders!" (and, pray tell, what was Red-Ink Reagan's "revenue enhancement" but a TAX?) -- they themselves are far more guilty of a particular sin than are the person or persons whom they so gleefully pillory for it.

But will these self-appointed beadles of honor and dignity ever strip their own backs for their rightful punishment? Not unless we make them.