The watchdog didn't bark

July 16, 2002 | Why the activities of oilman George W. Bush in the 1980s and 1990s should be a matter of headlines now is something of a mystery. The mystery isn't what actually happened. It is clear that in the course of making roughly $16 million, Bush flouted securities laws, rode roughshod over the rights of others and found protection among his father's friends. (Bush's memory is fuzzy on some of the details.)

But the real mystery -- and it is every bit as important in a democracy as what Bush knew and when he knew it -- is the one memorialized by the "curious incident" of the dog that roused Sherlock Holmes' interest in "Silver Blaze." The dog did nothing, Watson protested. But that was the point, said Holmes: Why didn't the dog bark on the night of the murder?

The "curious incident" regarding the president's shady stock dealings is why the watchdog media didn't bark during the 2000 presidential election, when new unflattering evidence emerged in the month before the vote. This is not a question that even now the media is bothering to probe, which at least demonstrates a consistent talent for inertia. Indeed, if there is any effort now among the most delinquent, it is to cover up their inadequacies by misrepresenting what they did, or by suggesting the story is no big deal anyway, and never was.

Back in 1991 it became known that when Bush, a director and consultant to Harken Energy, made a June 1990 insider sale of Harken stock, he failed to complete the requisite SEC Form 4. The deadline for reporting insider trades is the 10th day of the following month; Bush was eight months late. He unloaded more than 200,000 Harken shares for $848,560, just before the company revealed a quarterly loss of $23 million and its stock cratered. The story is that an institutional investor -- an unnamed good fairy with a gift for timing -- called Bush's stockbroker just at the moment Bush needed $600,000 for a minority stake in the Texas Rangers. This was the stake he sold in 1998 for $16 million. The SEC, having looked into the affair, did not press any charges.