Yes, I know that Joe Conason is the pariah of punditry, a Clinton apologist . But, let's take a peek at this week's article in the Observer::
If you remember that terrible "energy crisis"
in California a year or so ago, then you may
also recall that everybody who is anybody
had a strong opinion about
its causes and cures.
Actually, most members of
the opinionated elite were
promoting the same conservative certitudes:
They exonerated the likes of Enron, blamed
environmentalists and regulators, and
mocked any hint of market manipulation by
the energy industry.
As of last week, however, with the exposure of internal
Enron documents that describe the market-rigging strategies
nicknamed "Fat Boy," "Death Star" and "Get Shorty," we
have a clearer idea of what really happened. Now we have
seen proof, in memos written by Enron’s own lawyers, that
the West Coast energy crisis was exacerbated by the
powermongers, perhaps by criminal means. Now we know
about the trading schemes used by Enron to game the
California system, even at the risk of dangerous blackouts.
Now we are learning that deregulation permitted Enron, and
apparently other firms, to "launder" electricity and falsify
congestion on the power grid, in order to rob tens of billions
of dollars from California consumers and businesses.
So we also know now that those dominant voices in the
media, braying about the infallibility of the market, were
loudly, confidently and completely wrong. And who were
they again?
Aside from the nation’s conservative editorial pages—which
is to say, most of them—the defenders of the energy traders
rampaged across the op-ed columns and magazine pages.
Texas Monthly reassured the home folks that Enron and
Reliant Energy were innocent, deriding California as "whine
country." Oil & Gas Daily agreed that the Californians
themselves were "the real culprits in the energy drama."
In the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer assured
readers that only "silly" Californians "think that the rolling
blackouts are a conspiracy by the power companies to raise
rates." And William Safire, in an almost incomprehensible
column that termed the rise and fall of prices "as natural as
breathing," warned that "populist interference with the
[electricity] market’s self-correction would lead to worse
shortages and rationing, to inflation and wage control." That
was a scary prediction from the sage of The New York
Times—and also utterly, totally, ridiculously wrong.
I hope Welch and Layne don't devote tomorrow's blogging to the deconstruction of Joe Conason. Hey, even if he's wrong, isn't there anything better to do?
But, note to Welch and Layne: Read The Hunting of the President. Read Fools for Scandal. Read David Brocks's illuminating, if imperfect, Blinded by the Right. Read your most hated left-wing pundit's Sound and Fury. Hell, while you're at it, read Susan Faludi's Backlash.
