Holding Dick Cheney "Accountable"

By now, you'd think the Bush White House would be pretty adept at responding to the rising tide of corporate scandals washing over the White House lawn.

Clearly, though, Team Bush had an off day last week when, in the space of 12 hours, it was revealed that both Harken Energy, while President Bush was on its board, and Halliburton, while Vice President Cheney was its CEO, had created subsidiary shell companies in offshore tax havens. The administration's attempt at what was presumably damage control did more harm than good.

First, Bush's and Cheney's reps tried to argue that even though setting up shop in the Caymans is a favorite ploy of companies looking to avoid paying their fair share of taxes -- Enron had 692 subsidiaries there -- that wasn't the reason Harken or Halliburton had done it. Well, pray tell, what was? A desire to rack up frequent flier miles checking on the company headquarters/PO Box? A desperate longing for a bitchin' tan? Cheaper umbrella drinks for company meetings?

As if this half-hearted evasion weren't lame enough, White House spokesman Dan Bartlett fell back on the classic "Plan B:" trying to make friends and win arguments by splitting hairs. Harken's offshore entity wasn't designed to evade taxes, explained Bartlett, it was meant to enhance "tax competitiveness." And to his credit, Bartlett didn't even break out laughing after this claim. Probably waited until he got back to his office. Oh yeah, and also, oral sex isn't -- well, you know the drill.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer even tried the ol' No Harm, No Foul defense, arguing that the reason Bush's company went Caribbean was a "moot question" because Harken never made any money on the Cayman venture. Memo to Fleischer: Arguing that the crime didn't pay isn't a defense. And by the way, thank you, Ari, for further evidence that our first MBA president was an exceedingly poor businessman.

These wobbly spin doctors' task was, admittedly, made much harder by the fact that on the same day these tax dodge disclosures came to light, President Bush had spoken out with his usual Dudley Do-Right forthrightness against the very same practice. "We ought to look at people who are trying to avoid U.S. taxes as a problem," he said. Indeed we ought. So why don't we?

Let's start by looking at the problem of the vice president and Halliburton. During the number two's time as the company's number one, the number of Halliburton subsidiaries registered in tax-friendly locations ballooned from nine in 1995 to 44 in 1999. The result? A dramatic drop in Halliburton's federal taxes, which fell from $302 million in 1998 to less than zero -- to wit, an $85 million rebate -- in 1999.

At the same time they were hard at work stiffing U.S. taxpayers, Cheney and Halliburton were happily feasting at the public trough -- the company received $2.3 billion in government contracts and another $1.5 billion in government financing and loan guarantees.

During the vice-presidential debate, Cheney scored points responding to a Joe Lieberman zinger about the millions Cheney had made during the Clinton-Gore years by boasting that "the government had absolutely nothing to do" with his burgeoning bank account. Only someone fully immersed in the corporate culture of our day could view $3.8 billion as "absolutely nothing."

It would be nice to hear what Mr. Cheney has to say about all of this, but, unfortunately, the V.P. has been making himself very scarce as of late -- especially when it comes to the media. He hasn't spoken to reporters, given a press conference, or made the rounds of the political chat shows since, coincidentally, right around the time in May when reports first surfaced that the Securities and Exchange Commission was looking into Halliburton's Cheney-era accounting practices.