From the I-don’t-want-to-get-all-grassy-knoll-on-y’all-I’m-just-sayin’ department, I offer two items buried in the business page of today’s New York Times:
* On page C3, we learn that Ken Lay isn’t the only businessman involved in the Enron mess who came to an untimely end. Here is the NYT:
A British banker who provided evidence to the F.B.I. and the United States Department of Justice about Enron-related transactions has been found dead in an East London park, days ahead of the politically charged extradition of his former colleagues to Houston to stand trial.
Scotland Yard, the Times goes on, “said the death was being treated as ‘unexplained’ and that officers from its homicide and serious crime units were investigating.”
* Immediately to the right of the London story, the Times sends us back to Houston, where boldface names from the Bush Dynasty turned out for “Kenny Boy” Lay’s sendoff to wherever it is big-time energy execs go when they die. Attendees of Lay’s funeral included George H.W. and Barbara Bush, old-school Bush family fixer James Baker, and the former commerce secretary Bob Mosbacher, the NYT reports.
Funny, I always thought that after Enron’s schemes unraveled, the Bushies had nothing but scorn for bad-apple energy execs, who were making all the upstanding fellows in the industry look bad.
Hmmm. Guess Kenny Boy wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Remember that scene in Godfather II, when Robert Duval goes to visit the old gangster in prison, and lets him know in exquisitely coded language that if he quietly kills himself, his family will be taken care of and his good name will be protected? I’m just sayin’.
