Conveniently Ebbie, conflict of interest laws required many Bush administration officials to divest before or shortly after taking office. So no, none of them were hurt as shareholders by this debacle.

The idea they want us to believe is that doing nothing, rather than intervening to stop the illegal activities of Enron's Board of Directors (ie preventing shareholders and employees from selling stock, until they were able to sell their own before the big crash) was the right thing to do.

It certainly appears that Bush administration officials at the highest levels now knew full well the extent of the wrongdoing in the weeks before the company collapsed, and did nothing. And so will likely stick to that story, and argue that they weren't required by law to do anything. Therefore, doing nothing was the morally right thing to do.

Pretzel logic, but it likely will continue to be their defense throughout the hearings process.

If they can find anyone without ties to Enron to investigate them, that is.

Imagine if the public decided that whomever did the investigating couldn't have any ties to the energy industries at all? Hmmmmm....