The Enron Pigs Get Porked

5/26/2006

Take a minute to celebrate. Momentous occasions like this don't happen every day. It's a rare pleasure when greedy, evil, lying pigs of the magnitude of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling get their just rewards. So break out the champagne and the confetti and the noise makers and the cigars. Spend some time this holiday weekend basking in the glow of the American justice system that every once in a while actually works the way it's supposed to.

Here's the math: Chairman Kenneth Lay convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and making false statements. Possible jail time: 165 years. Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling convicted of conspiracy, securities fraud, making false statements and insider trading. Possible jail time: 185 years.

Like those numbers? Here's a few more: 5,000 Enron employees lost their jobs when Enron went bankrupt. All of them also lost their pensions and many lost their retirement savings, approximately $2.1 billion worth, which was tied up exclusively in Enron stock. Why would anyone put all their retirement money into one stock? Because about 3 weeks before the company went down the tubes, Kenny Boy encouraged employees to buy it, telling them it was an incredible bargain. At the same time, he was dumping his stock holdings in order to save his own sleazy neck.

During their trials, Kenny Boy and Jeffrey claimed total and complete innocence of all charges, as well as massive ignorance that any evil-doing was being done at Enron. Their attention was diverted to much more important things like dictating our national energy policy to Big Dick Cheney's secret energy cabal and manipulating California's electricity blackouts in 2001.

And like arrogant, fat bastards everywhere, Kenny Boy and Jeffrey have no idea to what degree they piss people off with their swaggering attitudes. The jurors who convicted them agreed that the trial's most damning evidence was Kenny and Jeffrey's own testimony in court. Defensive, prickly assholes, they said. Even if they didn't do anything illegal, they ought to spend a few years in the slammer just for being such pompous dickheads.

Of course, the boys didn't quite see it that way. They were unchastened by the verdicts. Kenny Boy, true to character, patiently explained to all us creatures of lesser intelligence that he plans two appeals, one in court and one to a higher power: "I firmly believe I'm innocent of the charges against me," he proclaimed with eyes raised to the sky. "We believe that God in fact is in control and indeed he does work all things for good for those who love the Lord."

Well, Kenny Boy, perhaps I can appeal to the spiritual side of your being that you love to flaunt. Why not spare the rest of the country some trips to the vomitorium by taking an alternative route. Spare your pet chimpanzee in the White House the agony of figuring out how to grant you a presidential pardon without looking like any more of an energy company prostitute than he already does. Do something positive for your country for a change. Go meet your maker today. Follow the example of your ex-coworker, J Clifford Baxter, by eating the barrel of a .38.

It will taste better than what your new dorm mates might have you eating. And you could eat a lot of it in 165 years.
 
 

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