Corporate scandals are GOP's problem

BETHLEHEM | President Bush and his followers are searching for a strategy to gloss over the miasma of corruption engulfing some large American corporations. The Republicans are acutely aware that their see-no-evil alliance with the business community could hurt them in this year's Congressional campaign. Thus far, carefully constructed Republican talking points promote the fairy tale notion that a handful of irresponsible or criminal malefactors in the business community are responsible for these corporate transgressions.

This is a soothing apothegm to reassure the GOP during a time when each day reveals another alarming corporate rip-off. Thus far, WorldCom, Enron, Arthur Anderson, Tyco, Adelphia, Xerox, ImClone, Dynegy and Qwest have been caught. Instead of attributing these debacles to a free market run amok under the approving gaze of a Republican Congress and President, we are lectured that they should be seen as nothing more than the aberrant antics of rogue CEOs who perhaps may have gone temporarily insane. Anyone accepting this vapid cover story probably also believed Mrs. Ken Lay, when she announced on ''The Today Show'' that the collapse of Enron had created ''personal hardship'' for her family. The CEOs responsible for these financial scandals are not experiencing any adverse monetary consequences, which is more than can be said for the thousands of hapless employees and shareholders whose lives have been decimated by their legerdemain.

Business excesses during the 1920s led to the stock market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression that ensued. During the 1920s, the American people elected three Republicans to the White House, each one of whom governed with the acquiescence of a sympathetic Republican Congress. The government stood down while business hucksters sold worthless stock and manipulated markets. President Coolidge, not known for having uttered many memorable phrases, once said: ''the business of America is business.'' Decades later, the GOP still adheres to the Coolidge philosophy.