Poputonian’s been on a roll over at digby‘s lately, and today he links to the Aspen Daily News print of Ken Lay’s obit. Let’s just say Weird Al couldn’t have parodied his life any better.
Ken spent 64 years on earth doing God’s work helping others with great compassion. We know that Ruth and Omer have embraced their precious son once again. Ken’s life exemplified Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Boy, Republicans must have a pretty different definition of kindness and goodness than the rest of us, huh?
Ken’s door was always open, whether it was to help with college funds for a child, to help a former Enron employee pay their mortgage; to help young entrepreneurs make their dreams a reality; or to give a second chance when he believed in a person. Ken could not say “no” to anyone needing help. When asked why he always looked for the best in everyone, Ken would simply reply that it was much better than the alternative.
Come on. Ken’s door was always open because he needed room for his mountains of fraudulently-earned dough to overflow.
This snippet actually answers my question above; it isolates for me the beautiful hypocrisy of conservative kindness and goodness. I’m sure that at some point in his career, Ken Lay did help an employee — one person — make a mortgage payment. This single act of charity to a person he probably knew as a real person is then supposed to supercede the job trauma and retirement damage he caused to 14,000 vaguely-known Enron employees. And we haven’t even gotten into him ripping off the entire state of California.
For conservatives, helping someone you know to float by for a month means everything. Your generosity is to be celebrated. Fucking over thousands of people you’ve never had in your living room means nothing. It’s just the price of business.
In that light, I will let this summary of his time at Enron stand on its own as a beautiful ode to complete and total self-delusion:
Ken loved Enron, and saw the company as one of limitless possibilities. He often talked of the incredible talent at Enron and believed that the Enron employees were unsurpassed in any industry. Ken believed the real value of Enron was in its people.
Obits like that are usually written by either the family or the funeral director.
And are still awful.