WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush has become the new Kenneth Lay. As chief executive officer of the former juggernaut Enron Corp., Lay presided over a network of deception and malfeasance that led to one of the greatest investor ripoffs in U.S. corporate history. Enron inflated reported income and conducted much of its business through off-balance-sheet transactions hidden from analysts, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the general public.
In public, Bush repeatedly denounces these "serious abuses of trust by some corporate leaders." But given the disturbing sleight of hand manipulations by his administration regarding the search for weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, in Iraq, the president seems to be more inspired than repulsed by Lay's deceptive wizardry.
Bush has triggered a tectonic shift in the management of official secrets, hiding more from the public across all policy sectors -- not just national security -- than any president since the conspiracy-obsessed Richard Nixon. He has fostered a White House culture that is casual about facts and is comfortable with making unsubstantiated national security assertions.