Enron's Spiritual Leader

As you read this from The Times, wouldn't you find it interesting if Kenny Boy really was the great man he says he is, perhaps by revealing to us what Bush, Schwarzenegger and others knew and did about the California energy crisis, how much of a role Lay did play in the Bush White House until the end of 2001, etc?

When President Bush was elected, there was much speculation about whether his top corporate sponsor, Kenneth Lay of Enron, would end up as secretary of the Treasury or the Department of Energy. Mr. Lay stayed in the private sector, enjoying the best of both worlds: corporate pay and the ability to make policy as part of Dick Cheney's energy task force.

Those were the days. Now Mr. Lay, the former chairman and chief executive of Enron, the once-imposing energy trader, is trying to portray his ties with the Bush dynasty as a liability. Indicted on charges of participating in a fraud conspiracy that led to Enron's bankruptcy, Mr. Lay emerged from his arraignment yesterday and held a bizarre news conference, where he proclaimed his innocence. He also said that given his history with President Bush, it would have taken far more courage for prosecutors not to indict him.

Mr. Lay is certainly entitled to a fair trial with open-minded jurors. But the idea that he is somehow the victim of a politicized prosecution is belied by the facts of the case.