Commentary: Amnesia spreads through nation's capital

Long Island Business News, Feb 17, 2006 by Jerry Kremer

Webster's Dictionary defines amnesia as the unconscious suppression of a painful experience. For some strange reason, this illness is infecting government officials, corporate executives and a variety of other citizens.Let's start with Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Brownie, as he was called by the president, testified in front of a U.S. Senate committee this past week. One of the crucial questions posed by the committee was when Brown told the White House that New Orleans was under water and when he learned that the levees had been breached.Brown, in an overt display of amnesia, testified that he had called the White House when the levees broke open but couldn't recall who he talked to. He thought he had spoken to either Andrew Card, the president's chief of staff, or some other senior official. It's hard to imagine that any public official could forget in a short five months, who he had spoken to about one of the nation's worst disasters.Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives seem to be suffering from another form of amnesia. It was less than two months ago that a federal grand jury indicted high-flying lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Within days, the House passed a rule change that barred former members who are lobbyists from hanging out in the House chamber or in the outside cloakroom.This was supposed to be the first step towards major reform. Now, six weeks after the Ambramoff indictment, members of the House leadership are raising serious questions about the need for reform of their rules and regulation of lobbyists. The amnesia that has infected the House has crept down the hill to the White House. It seems that the White House is in possession of some photos of the president and Mr. Abramoff, which might be embarrassing if they reached the public.The White House press secretary's response to the request for the photos is that, the president takes many photographs with countless numbers of guests and doesn't recall meeting with this particular person.Days later, Mr. Abramoff was quoted as saying that he had met the president at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and that they spoke about the fact that both men had a set of twins. Abramoff has a host of other problems ahead of him, but his memory is much sharper than that of the president. Sometimes amnesia is not only convenient, but it can keep you out of jail. Last week Walter A. Forbes, chairman and chief executive of Cendant Co., went free for a second time. He was implicated in an accounting fraud case that had cost the company $3 billion.It seems that Forbes' defense was that as chairman and chief executive, he never prepared or was familiar with the company's financial statement, which would have revealed that things were going badly for Cendant. Apparently, the jury bought this type of amnesia about corporate affairs. Sometime early next year, a federal jury will get a chance to decide whether Lewis Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, is guilty or not guilty of perjury in connection with his conversations with a New York Times reporter. According to Libby's attorneys, he was so busy with matters of national concern that he didn't remember his conversations with the press.As of this week, the U.S. government claims that it has enough bird flu vaccine to protect at least thirty percent of the U.S. population. Despite countless stories detailing all types of amnesia being suffered by high profile people, the government hasn't taken any steps to stop this rapidly spreading disease.