Michael Moore hits one out of the park with his indictment of Bush's ties to Enron:

George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission--a former lawyer for his accountant, Arthur Andersen!

Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations and would not be held liable for any "funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this forward-thinking?). Then the rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, Dick Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big contracts from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay and Dick formed an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the county's new "energy policy." This policy then went on to shut down every light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And guess who made out like bandits while "trading" the energy California was in desperate need of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the files about those special meetings with Lay!

Good article in the LA Times detailing the long relationship between Enron and the Bush family, from George W lobbying the government of Argentina while his father was President to Ken Lay raising millions for Bush Sr in '92 and Bush Jr in 2000.

The Company Presidency
How much the Bush family and its close political entourage actually collected from Enron and its executives since the company was organized is a matter of definition--reportable political contributions, soft money for the Republican Party, finders' fees, joint investments, inauguration funding, presidential-library donations, speech money, capital gains, consulting fees, directors' fees or what? If you combine what the multiple Bush generations received with what loyalists Vice President Dick Cheney, Baker, Mosbacher, political advisor Karl Rove, economic advisor Lawrence B. Lindsey and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick got, you certainly have $6 million to $8 million, and depending on the success of the Baker-Mosbacher-Enron joint investments, perhaps $20 million to $30 million.

Bush has managed to single-handedly torpedo peace between North and South Korea. If I were cynical, I'd say it's been done on purpose as a way of justfying Bush's missile defense plans (which have always been less about defense and more about paying back big donors in the defense industry). If I were a little less cynical, I'd say they just wanted to undo everything Clinton did, and peace in Korea was on the list. I'd guess a little from Column A and a little from Column B with a big splash of clumsy bluster for good measure.

U.S. News: On his Far East trip, the president's harsh words on North Korea will be tested (2/18/02)
If there was any doubt that the era of good feelings had come to an end, it was erased the night President Bush popped Pyongyang during his State of the Union address. After labeling North Korea a member–along with Iran and Iraq–of a new "axis of evil," he proceeded to paint Kim Jong Il's government as "a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens." True to form, Pyongyang responded that Bush's comments were "little short" of a declaration of war and hinted it might reinforce its 1.1 million-strong People's Army.......

.......For eight years, the strategy for managing this goliath has been to talk, not shout. The two Koreas had appeared to be heading toward reconciliation after holding a groundbreaking North-South summit in June 2000. They organized reunions of families separated during the Korean War, their diplomats held a series of high-level talks, and they began to address American concerns about the North's missile program. Pyongyang has imposed a moratorium on the testing of long-range missiles, has apparently honored a 1994 accord to freeze its nuclear weapons program, and agreed to sign United Nations antiterrorism conventions after September 11. The country will also open its doors to unprecedented numbers of tourists during its widely promoted Arirang Festival this spring.

Bad blood. Relations began to falter last March, when Bush voiced skepticism about the North during a Washington summit with the South's Kim. After that, Pyongyang froze talks and called off the last set of family reunions planned for late last year.

Interesting article from the NY Times (requires registartion). George W Bush is trying to duck the public disclosure rules in Texas, which require information to be released within 10 days. He's transferred all the records from his term as Governor to his Daddy's Presidential Library, and is claiming that they aren't subject to the disclosure law since they're on Federal property. In those records are notes of his meetings with fatcat contributors from Enron and elsewhere.

Battling Over Records of Bush's Governorship
In the meantime, news organizations and a public interest group, Public Citizen, have petitioned the Bush library for the 60 or so Enron- related documents believed to be in the governor's files, many dating from 1997 to 1999 when Texas was debating utility deregulation.

Good article on the Enron influence machine. They calculate how any regulation or government action would affect them, then pressure legislators to change any that they didn't like. Also, in what may yet become a big scandal, the executives at Enron were pressured to contribute money to Geroge W Bush and other candidates favored by Ken Lay:

Hard Money, Strong Arms And 'Matrix' (washingtonpost.com)
With each proposed change in federal regulations, lobbyists punched details into a computer, allowing Enron economists in Houston to calculate just how much a rule change would cost. If the final figure was too high, executives used it as the cue to stoke their vast influence machine, mobilizing lobbyists and dialing up politicians who had accepted some of Enron's millions in campaign contributions......

........Sally Ison didn't realize the presidential race had begun until April 1999, when a letter arrived bearing the signature of Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth L. Lay. The letter asked for contributions to the Bush campaign and included what she recalls as a menacing reference to her husband Jerry's compensation as a highly paid vice president.

"We didn't even know if we liked this guy," she said of Bush. "I didn't know if I was going to vote Republican."

Yet there was no debate. Nearing 50, Jerry Ison felt vulnerable in Enron's crushingly competitive culture. The Isons gave $2,000.