Dems back off comparing scandals

WASHINGTON -- The Enron collapse is dangerous for Republicans. It fuels questions about influence-peddling in the White House. And it could raise election-year money for the Democrats.

But even the most loyal Democrats concede one thing that Enron is not: The Bush administration's Whitewater.

"I'm being very, very careful to say that it's not another Whitewater," said Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democrats' lead investigator into what the White House knew of the debacle, when, and how Enron may have influenced the administration's energy policy plans.

Still, some Democrats say unanswered questions could boost their party in the fall election.

"Enron has the potential to shape the entire political environment for 2002, impact other issues and reduce confidence in the Bush administration and the Republicans," a trio of Democratic consultants wrote in a memo circulated last month.

But so far, Democrats have not turned Enron into a buzzword for questionable presidential ethics, as Republicans were able to do with the Clintons' land deal.

First, Democrats have no evidence that anyone in the Bush administration acted on inside knowledge that Enron was in trouble.

"I can't say at this point that they've done anything unethical," Waxman said in a recent telephone interview from his home in California.

Risky proposition

Second, criticizing Republicans for their connections to Enron is risky for Democrats. Of the $5.8 million in candidate contributions Enron has made since 1989, about a fourth went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. Over those 12 years, the center says, 71 current senators and 188 House members received Enron donations.

Early on, the December collapse of Enron Corp. carried ingredients for the Bush administration's first major scandal -- and revenge for weary Democrats who spent eight years enduring Clinton's.

The Houston-based energy giant filed the biggest corporate bankruptcy in history Dec. 2 and later revealed it had kept billions of dollars of debts off its books and misled investors. Executives with inside knowledge of the firm's impending collapse sold their stock and made fortunes months before share values plummeted.

Unlike the twists and turns of the Clintons' land deal -- which led to indictments, imprisonments and other probes -- Enron is easily understood and almost no one is accusing the administration of wrongdoing.

Rich executives profited. Workers were manipulated. Documents were shredded. And warning shots were fired by battle-scarred Democrats: Did the Bush White House favor Enron, one of Bush's biggest campaign contributors, by trying to bail it out? Did the administration craft an energy policy that accommodated it?

Plenty of fodder

The White House denies all charges, and no evidence of wrongdoing has been found. But the Bush administration tantalized Democrats with plenty of fodder.

The nicknamer-in-chief distanced himself from his largest financial benefactor, a fellow Texan he called "Kenny Boy"-- former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay.

Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the Justice Department's probe of the collapse because he received campaign donations from Enron.

Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to release documents on deliberations by his energy policy advisory group. The General Accounting Office has sued to get them.