The Tipping Point
Has the US corporate media finally reached it in regard to Bush's crimes?
by Tamara Baker

July 13, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- What a difference a column makes.

Two weeks ago, George W. Bush was still being protected by the American corporate and broadcast press.

Then Paul Krugman, one of the few voices of dissent allowed in the mainstream media, lobs a fact-filled Molotov cocktail right in the Unelected One's face.

Using as a departure point a March 4, 2002 Wall Street Journal piece, Krugman brings up the issue of Bush's temerity in assuming the role of corporate ethics lecturer -- when in fact Bush's career is based on exactly the same sort of scummy dealings that marred Enron, WorldCom and a host of other malefactors of great wealth. Krugman actually named names such as "Harken Energy" and "Aloha Petroleum" -- names with which followers of Bush's career are most familiar.

And to show how pervasive the reek of corruption is in Bush's junta, Krugman even references Dick Cheney's CEO stint at Halliburton -- a company which is also under investigation for its conniving, and Cheney-approved, accounting strategies.

BOOM!

Suddenly, the media -- even the broadcast media -- started paying attention.

Bush's July 3, 2002 press conference found him being pestered by normally-docile members of the White House press corps -- so much so that his sharp temper, never far from the surface, erupted a few times as he lashed out at his questioners.

If Bush thought that the story would die down over the Fourth of July holiday, he was wrong.

Instead, journalists all over America's media sector were revving up their engines, hopping onto the story with both hands and feet.

Other columnists, held back for so long by cowardly bosses afraid of displeasing the Boy King, suddenly cut loose after seeing Krugman raise the red flag. Nowhere was this more striking than at the New York Times itself. On July 6, fellow NYT scribe Frank Rich delivered a tasty little piece entitled "All the President's Enrons". Krugman himself followed up with the masterfully hard-hitting "Succeeding in Business", in which he provides a good overview of Bush's being coddled by his powerful business buddies from one spectacular failure to the next, pocketing more coin for himself with each imploded company. Even Maureen Dowd took time out from her obsession with Bill Clinton's reproductive organ to lob a Harken-flavored grenade Bush's way.

Meanwhile, the Village Voice's James Ridgeway, crediting the Center for Public Integrity, gave us all another detailed rendering of Bush's checkered business history, and even included the long-forgotten tidbit about how Bush was essentially allowed to "pump millions" ($28 million, to be exact) of the Harvard Endowment Fund to prop up Harken.

The Baltimore Sun chimed in, mentioning that Bush's "vetting" by his father's SEC was done by Richard Breeden and James Doty, two of the Bush family's best friends and flunkies. And just to keep the fires stoked, Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch, for reasons known only to them, decided to follow up their long-standing legal with regard to Bush's Carlyle Group ties with a big fat lawsuit directed at Dick Cheney over his management of Halliburton.

Even the broadcast media, normally so timid about criticizing Republicans, got into the act. For the past week, either Harken or Halliburton -- or some variant thereof -- has been prominently featured, often as the lead story, on the evening newscasts of every network except (of course) FOX. And the dots are being connected.

This is all wonderful and grand, but my question is: Why now?

Why didn't the media notice back in February of 2000, when Joe Conason published his Harper's article on how George W. Bush got so rich through the wreckage of several failed companies, mentioning Harken as one of them?

Why didn't the media notice an equally scary article in the maiden issue of Talk magazine, back in September of 1999, by Tucker Carlson of all people? (That was the issue wherein Shrub shared the cover with Hillary Clinton. The media took a portion of the Clinton article, wrenched it out of context, and spent weeks beating her over the head with it; in contrast, fewer than a dozen articles were written about the Bush piece, which features Bush using the f-word several times -- and imagine the hue and cry if the press caught Hillary saying "dammit" in public! -- and making mean-spirited jokes about executing Karla Faye Tucker.)

There's a ton of unsavory information out there that has been readily available to anyone who knows how to use Google -- and this info has existed for years.

So why is the press suddenly discovering stuff that's been right under their noses for years? How did Krugman's column suddenly become the tipping point?

Is it because that even the corporate titans who run the media have belatedly realized what a cursory glance at the stock market nowadays will tell you -- that Shrub Is Bad for Business, as well as the rest of us?

That's the only answer that makes sense to me.

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ISSN No. 1523-1690