1). Mr. Lay and his company were among the largest campaign contributors to George W. Bush throughout his political career;
2). In 2000, Mr. Lay provided candidate George W. Bush with use of the Enron company jet for the campaign;
3). Mr. Lay was on President Bush's short list for nominees to be his Secretary of Energy;
4). Mr. Lay vetted President Bush's choice to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission;
5). Mr. Lay was a key participant in Vice President Dick Cheney's secret "Energy Task Force";
6). Mr. Lay met with Cheney to ask him to block the FERC from capping California's energy prices during the Enron-manufactured energy "crisis";
7). President Bush's first Secretary of the Army, Thomas White, was a former Enron executive who moved to de-regulate how the Army purchased energy;
8). Attorney General Alberto Gonzales got his start as a lawyer for Vinson and Elkins whose main client at the time was Enron;
9). Republican strategist and White House go-to guy, Ed Gillespie, was formerly a lobbyist for Enron;
10). Mr. Lay testified and spent millions of dollars to promote de-regulation of energy markets at the state and federal level by making the bogus claim that such de-regulation would benefit consumers;
11). Mr. Lay and Enron, after successfully pushing energy de-regulation in California with the help of cronies in government, immediately let loose their young traders who gamed the market by illegally restricting the supply of energy, thereby reaping billions of dollars in ill-gotten profits for the company;
12). Mr. Lay gave far more campaign cash to Republicans and was himself a life-long Republican, (the mainstream media imply that since Lay threw a little cash at Democrats his political giving was nonpartisan);
13). The New York Times tells us that in the wake of Mr. Lay's conviction some business schools are now offering "ethics classes," but ignores the fact that Enron's slash-and-burn practices -- "special purpose entities," "limited partnerships," off-shore accounts, and its cooptation of politicians, investment banks, and accounting firms -- has itself become a business model;
14). Businessweek, Forbes, Fortune, and the business pages of the nation's leading newspapers, held up Mr. Lay as a hero of business right up to his company's spectacular collapse;
15). The dark implications of President Bush's tight connections to "Kenny Boy" and to Enron.