Just hours after making a big to-do of signing the corporate reform bill, President Bush began to try to water it down.
On provision of the bill protects employees who bring to Congress evidence that their companies have been cooking their books. Claire Buchanan, White House spokesman, issued a statement saying that this protection only applies when the Congress is "in the course of an investigation.”
That means, if you call up your local Congressman to alert him or her about fraud, you are not protected. The investigation must already have been started. That means, if the majority party never authorizes an investigation, you can never call it -- you can't call a minority member, because they don't have the power to authorize a formal investigation.
The White House is trying to have it both ways: look like it cares about corporate crime and letting the corporate criminals off. I think it's no surprize that, upon the news from Washington, the markets are down.
The markets want this reform. Investors want this reform. Everybody wants this reform, except the 61 people on this list, the crooks who are poised to join the list, and the President.
The list is of the 61 people who profited the most as their companies went bankrupt -- the people who stole the most as they drove their companies into the ground. I understand that a bunch of them are buddies of the current President, but they belong in jail. The President should use the presidency to ensure that evidence of criminal activity has the ability to come to light.
That's not too much to ask.