What's Cheney Afraid Of?

Like a buffalo coming in off the Wyoming prairie, Dick Cheney suddenly emerged last week and was big as life in Washington, attending the State of the Union address after doing a several-day blitz of the talk shows. After he'd been hunkered down for weeks in his undisclosed location, you suddenly couldn't get away from the guy when you turned on the tv. There he was on CNN, on This Week, on Fox News. He appeared just slightly manic, too?for the usually less-than-energetic Cheney, that is?making his case for why he won't give up details about the meetings of his energy task force.

Cheney is sweating. The conservative pundit Robert Novak noted in a column that Cheney, who is "usually silent" at the weekly luncheons of Republican senators, "spoke up...to plead with them not to criticize his refusal to make public the secret records."

Now the administration is going to the mat, defiant even as the General Accounting Office launches a lawsuit. Republicans are scrambling, torn between loyalty to the President and consistency to their own stated positions of the past. David Walker of the GAO said that he had no choice but to move forward with the suit because any future administration "seeking to insulate its activities from oversight and public scrutiny could do so simply by assigning these activities to the vice president or a body under the White House's direct control."

That of course is precisely the argument Republicans made when they attacked Hillary Clinton eight years ago, demanding public disclosure regarding her health-care task force. Where is Mary Matalin, one of the chief Hillary-bashers who demanded full disclosure at that time? Why, she's helping her boss Cheney to conceal his documents, that's where she is.

That is why the Bush administration's excuse?that it refuses to turn over the information in order to protect executive privilege?is bogus. There's no principle here, just pure, unadulterated politics and slick maneuvering.

For some clues about what Dick Cheney may be afraid of, we need only study what has so far come into view regarding this administration's connections to Enron. If one story that has surfaced does prove true, it could mean that White House aide Karl Rove engaged in illegal activity, violating election law. It would also illustrate just how business is done in the Bush administration and why Cheney wouldn't want his covert meetings revealed.

"Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, recommended the Republican strategist Ralph Reed to the Enron Corporation for a lucrative consulting contract as Mr. Bush was weighing whether to run for president, close associates of Mr. Rove say," The New York Times reported on Friday, Jan. 25, in an illuminating piece. "The Rove associates say the recommendation, which Enron accepted, was intended to keep Mr. Reed's allegiance to the Bush campaign without putting him on the Bush payroll." That was shortly after Reed had stepped down as executive director of the Christian Coalition.

Both Reed and Rove denied that Reed's Enron contract had anything to do with the election campaign, though Rove conceded that he'd praised Reed and his qualifications to the Enron folks. But according to the Times, a Bush friend said that Rove bragged about setting the job up for Reed: "'Karl told me explicitly of his concerns to take care of Ralph,' this person said. 'It was important for Karl's power position to be the guy who put this together for Ralph. And Bush wanted Ralph available to him during the presidential campaign.'"

Rove, the source said, was afraid to have Reed take an official and paid position in the campaign because he was "so evangelical and hard right" and it thus might send "the wrong signal." The idea was to put Reed on the Enron payroll and have him "volunteer" his time to the campaign. That way, you get his expertise on how to handle the religious zealots, while not getting the baggage of having an actual extremist as part of the campaign. Pretty convenient of Enron, huh? And so nice of the company to do such a thing without getting anything in return, right?

Reed was paid up to $20,000 per month by Enron while he "volunteered" his time on the Bush campaign. Reed was thus able to bring in the far-right, antigay, nasty-as-hell crowd while the campaign could put on its veneer of compassionate conservatism. Even more of a boon, the campaign strategists could perhaps orchestrate some of the more unsavory political campaign practices without being linked to them officially?such as gay-bashing. During the South Carolina primary?when Bush spoke at the notorious Bob Jones University to court the far right, and while Reed was "volunteering" on the campaign?fliers were sent around the state, including to 23 state legislators, claiming that Bush rival John McCain was connected to gay groups and for that reason should not be president. Who exactly sent them around remains a mystery, but it's the type of ugly stuff that Reed has perfected.

If the Rove/Reed/Enron link is proved, it not only means a Bush official made an unethical and illegal deal with Enron, but it sheds a bright light on just the kind of backroom dealing that Bush, Cheney, Rove and others in the White House have always trafficked in, meshing politics and the oil business. And it seems as if Cheney will do whatever it takes to cover up those dealings. As noted by journalist Damien Cave on Salon back in the fall, Cheney told Sam Donaldson in August 2000 that as the head of Halliburton he had a firm policy that he wouldn't do any business with Iraq, including "even arrangements that were supposedly legal." But the Financial Times eventually revealed that Cheney actually oversaw $23.8 million in sales to Iraq in 1998 and 1999. "Cheney," Cave reported, "who collected a $36 million salary before becoming vice president, essentially profited from the destruction of Iraq that he oversaw as secretary of defense during the Gulf War." And as we know, Bush, Rove, Condoleezza Rice (who sat on Chevron's board) and others in the administration all have similar connections to the oil business.

What Cheney thus may be afraid of regarding the documents may not even have anything to do with Enron. It may be something else, about some other company. It might be even more general?a fear that the public will see exactly how these folks do business, melding politics with Big Oil and their own self-interest. And it might not even be about these particular meetings at all. The administration may be standing on "principle" because they're afraid of just what might come down the pike regarding other meetings, other covert discussions. With Cheney's conflicts and his propensity to paper them over, nothing should surprise us.

Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at [www.signorile.com](http://www.signorile.com).