THE collapse of Enron was spread over several months late last year, when the world's attention was still on Afghanistan. The Texas-based energy-trading giant, once America's seventh-biggest company, declared bankruptcy on December 2nd. Yet it has taken until now for this simmering affair to boil over in Washington, DC. And, as so often, the ensuing scandal risks focusing on the wrong issues.
On Capitol Hill, much of the talk has been of the close links that Kenneth Lay, Enron's chairman, had with George Bush and other Texas Republicans. The press has been burrowing into how often Mr Lay and other Enron bosses called administration officials to beg fruitlessly for help.
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