Daily Archives: October 25, 2006

The media’s mistreatment of Jeff Skilling

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Skilling24.jpgAs noted here, here, here and several other times on this blog over the past couple of years, the mainstream media’s coverage of the Enron-related criminal trials has been spotty at best, shameful at its worst, particularly as it embraced and perpetrated the Enron Myth in reporting on the trial and sentencing of Jeff Skilling. Thus, this Ayn Rand Institute press release of yesterday caught my attention:

The Media’s Mistreatment of Jeff Skilling
Irvine, CA–Upon hearing the news that former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was sentenced to 24 years, most Americans, trusting the newspaper articles and books they have read on Enron, think that justice has been served. But, said Alex Epstein, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, “Jeff Skilling has not gotten justice, and the media bear a major portion of the blame.
“Few Americans know that during Skilling’s trial, the prosecution came nowhere near proving its central allegation that Jeff Skilling engineered a conspiracy to defraud investors. Few know that Skilling, upon leaving Enron five months before its collapse, destroyed no documents, nor did anything else resembling a criminal cover-up. Few know that the prosecution, unable to prove a conspiracy, spent huge swaths of the trial taking pot-shots at Skilling with issues not even mentioned in the indictment, such as the failure of Skilling, a multi-millionaire many times over, to disclose a failed $50,000 investment to Enron’s board.
“The media’s misportrayal of the case against Skilling long predates the trial. Ever since the fall of Enron, most of the media have treated as fact every conceivable smear against Skilling made by ax-grinding prosecutors or ex-Enron employees, while treating as absurd Skilling’s claim that he neither engineered a conspiracy nor lied to investors.
“There can be no doubt that the media’s treatment of Skilling contributed to his conviction for a phantom conspiracy–and to the outrageous 24-year sentence that he has now received. And the mistreatment of Skilling is part of a broader trend: the trend of treating businessmen as guilty until proven innocent. Our journalists and intellectuals, accepting the idea that the pursuit of profit is morally tainted, assume that whenever anything goes wrong in business, it is the result of crooked behavior by greedy, rich CEOs–and slant their coverage accordingly. This practice is putting numerous innocent men in jail, and instilling terror throughout corporate America.
“During Skilling’s appeal, let us call for the media to start treating Skilling–and all businessmen–fairly.”

The mainstream media’s slanted coverage of Enron in general and Skilling in particular is a subject that is ripe for examination. We have not heard the last of this issue.

A fascinating peek at the descent into Alzheimerís

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William Utermohlen.jpgWhen he learned in 1995 that he had Alzheimerís disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist based in London, began his final project — drawing self-portraits during his descent into dementia and ultimately Alzheimer’s. This NY Times article reports that Utermohlen’s work is being exhibited this week by the Alzheimer’s Association at the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan:

The paintings starkly reveal the artistís descent into dementia, as his world began to tilt, perspectives flattened and details melted away. His wife and his doctors said he seemed aware at times that technical flaws had crept into his work, but he could not figure out how to correct them.
ìThe spatial sense kept slipping, and I think he knew,î Professor [Patricia] Utermohlen [William Utermohlen’s wife] said. A psychoanalyst wrote that the paintings depicted sadness, anxiety, resignation and feelings of feebleness and shame. [. . .]
Mr. Utermohlen, 73, is now in a nursing home. He no longer paints.
His work has been exhibited in several cities, and more shows are planned. The interest in his paintings as a chronicle of illness is bittersweet, his wife said, because it has outstripped the recognition he received even at the height of his career.

Colleen Carroll Campbell, who has written extensively about Alzheimer’s, observes that the disease “embodies everything we fear most about aging — weakness and dependence, humiliation and oblivion.” Nearly half of Americans over the age of 35 know someone personally who is at some stage of dementia, and as Americans are living longer, Alzheimer’s is claiming more victims. About 4.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s today, which is more than double the number who had the disease just 25 years ago. Utermohlen’s paintings provide us with an important perspective on this insidious disease as we confront the difficult issues that result from it.

Litmus test run amok

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bush_exasperated.jpgEarlier in the week, it was the Democrats making silly. But today, this Washington Post editorial reports that a Republican senator from Kansas is one-upping the Democrats in the absurdity department:

IF YOU THOUGHT that fights over judicial nominations couldn’t get any worse, consider the case of Janet T. Neff, whom President Bush has nominated to a federal district judgeship in Michigan. Judge Neff, who serves on the Michigan Court of Appeals, is part of a multi-judge deal between the White House and Michigan’s two Democratic senators resolving a long-standing fight over federal court nominees from that state. Yet in reaching an accommodation with the home-state senators, Mr. Bush finds himself with another problem. For Judge Neff, it turns out, once attended a commitment ceremony for a lesbian couple — and that has Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback (R) reaching for the smelling salts and blocking the nomination.
Mr. Brownback has said he wants to satisfy himself that the judge was not presiding over an “illegal marriage ceremony” in Pittsfield, Mass., in 2002 — before the state legalized same-sex marriage. He has written to Judge Neff asking for an explanation, his spokesman says, and will hold up her nomination until he learns the nature of the ceremony and its legality. . . . An administration official says Judge Neff has told Mr. Brownback that she didn’t preside [over the ceremony].

Blocking a long-delayed judicial nomination by your party’s President because the nominee attended a commitment ceremony between a couple of gay friends? Even had the judge “presided” over the non-binding, symbolic ceremony, what difference does that make? What on earth is Brownback thinking?
President Bush has got to be thinking that his Crawford ranch is looking better every day.