The Chron’s Mary Flood reports today that the documentary Enron, The Smartests Guys in the Room (earlier post here) will open in Houston on April 20 at the River Oaks Theatre, just down the street from where Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow all live.
No word on whether the three are on the invitation-only list for the Houston premiere.
By the way, I am patiently waiting for a movie reviewer to read this paper before penning a review on the Enron documentary. Don’t worry, though. I am not holding my breath while waiting.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
Speaking of Enron — Pass the Popcorn
Houston’s Clear Thinker reports that a new documentary is hitting the theaters next month.
I hope, in addition to movie reviewers of the upcoming Enron film, that other opinion makers read your recommended article as well as your blog. I note in this regard your recent suggestion that ?maybe, just maybe, a Pulitzer Prize is waiting for an enterprising reporter who is willing to go beyond the simple story of Enron.? That has not happened yet. You write that Eichenwald?s book may replace Smartest Guys as ?best? book on Enron. But neither, alas, goes beyond the ?simple story.? Although Eichenwald, to his credit, corrects certain of the myths about Enron ? such as those surrounding employees being temporarily blocked from selling shares in their retirement accounts, the ?shredding? of Enron documents and the tragic death of Cliff Baxter ? he fails to correct the more important ones. Indeed, this appearance of objectivity will no doubt make it less likely that readers will approach the book?s main points critically, as they should be.
For example Eichenwald, like others who have superficially considered the issue, gravely notes that the use of mark-to-market accounting left Enron in the position that it had to start from scratch ever year. But, whether using mark-to-market accounting or not, what business does not have to do that? And, among many others but most importantly, Eichenwald simply gets the Raptors and the prepays wrong. On this point I think it is revealing his research assistant was seventeen-years old when hired and that no experts on accounting and finance are listed in his acknowledgments. Eichenwald also jumps on the bandwagon about the PRC, as if there are alternatives that take ?politics? out of the work-place. (I am reminded here of Churchill?s oft repeated criticism that ?Democracy is the worst form of Government, except all those other forms ??.) In any event, Eichenwald is an interesting choice as critic here, given that as I understand it he works from his Dallas home, spending as little time as possible in the messy and complicated world of an actual office.
Yet Eichenwald?s biggest failure is that he seems constitutionally unable to challenge to any meaningful degree the ?official? versions of the Enron story, including those put forth at the show-trial like Congressional hearings, in Batson?s ?non-advocacy? advocacy, and most critically by the hyper-powerful and hyper-active Enron Task Force. (I note here, as an aside, that it is interesting the NYT is willing to upbraid itself for having trusted too readily the early information coming out of the Administration?s Departments of Defense and State about Iraq, but has had no similar epiphany about the information coming out of the Department of Justice about corporate crime; I have to believe this failure is based in part on a ?bias against capitalism? similar to the one Professor Ribstein discusses in his article.)
I refer you once again to the article by Professor John H. Langbein, now at Yale law School, ?Torture and Plea Bargaining? 46 U. Chi. L. Rev. 3, 9-10 (1978-79) and this link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/langbein.html to a 2004 interview of him on PBS. Professor Langbein writes and comments about the massive coercive power prosecutors have due to the disparity between the risks a criminal defendant has going to trial versus pleading. I would observe that prosecutors have even greater coercive power with regard to witnesses who have not yet been indicted, as these witnesses choice at that point in time is even more of a no-brainer.
You have written from time to time about the Enron Task Force?s abuse of its prosecutorial discretion, and I applaud you for that. Perhaps a blogger might yet grab one of those waiting Pulitzer Prizes?