Word: scandalizing
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...Normally when public companies flame out in scandal, top executives can be seen running from headquarters mumbling that they are shocked to learn that there was gambling going on in the casino. But there's not much of that here. Enron and Andersen officials hardly deny the dubious deals, the 881 offshore tax havens or the stupid accounting tricks. That's partly because nobody can be sure that those dodges were inherently illegal. Many companies maintain similar arrangements, usually intended to avoid taxes--a benefit of interest to Enron...
...majority of the Enron money, struck an unbothered pose, relieved that neither Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill nor Commerce Secretary Don Evans had lifted a finger when Enron came calling for help last fall. Still, the Bush team made one tiny bow to the explosive potential of the Enron scandal, hinting for the first time that it might fork over the details of Vice President Cheney's closed-door meetings with energy-industry officials last spring if a congressional committee requested them. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett predicted that those papers, if released, would provide no evidence of a smoking quid...
...years ago, Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino, arguing that the Big Five could police themselves, led the squawking that ultimately got former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt to back down from proposals to forbid accounting forms from doing consulting work. When the current scandal first started to bloom, Berardino insisted to Congress that 70-year-old accounting rules don't give auditors the tools to flag the kind of risky behaviors that got Enron in trouble - and that it's the laws governing client disclosure that are toothless, allowing an Enron to hide its shadiest deals from the poor auditors trying...
...half of the Administration (and presciently employing the other half while the Democrats were in the White House), Enron effectively made itself a leper in distress. Ashcroft is off the case, Lindsey and Rove will be busily burying themselves in other matters, and Bush's best defense against a scandal will be to make sure Justice's special Enron-dedicated task force makes Ken Starr look like he went easy on the Clintons...
...Congress gears up for hearings on Enron's $60 billion collapse, some Democrats are savoring a chance to investigate links between the company and its many G.O.P. friends in the White House and Congress. But the scandal may wind up tainting Democrats as well. Florida's state pension fund, which lost $325 million on Enron, is examining, as part of a broader inquiry, what role Frank Savage, a major Democratic donor, may have played in the state's loss. The fund's investments were directed by Alliance Capital Management, where Savage was a senior executive and chairman at the same...