Lying SOBs: Thursday Edition
Remember the heated exchange between senate Democrats and Energy Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK — yes, that Ted Stevens) at the start of last week’s Joint Senate Hearing on Energy Pricing and Profits? At issue was whether the oil company executives should be sworn to testify under oath. Stevens reminded the panel that
[t]hese witnesses accepted the invitation to appear before our committees voluntarily. They are aware that making false statements and testimony is a violation of federal law, whether or not an oath has been administered.
* * *
I shall not administer an oath today.
Senator Cantwell requested a vote on the issue. Stevens put the kibosh on that suggestion with an angry “NO!”
Senator Inouye, the ranking Democrat, got it right:
If I were a witness I would prefer to be sworn in so the public knows what I was about to say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…. If I were a witness I would demand to take the oath.
So why not to take an oath?
Maybe because they were about to lie.
A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001 — something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.
The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.
In a joint hearing last week of the Senate Energy and Commerce committees, the chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips said their firms did not participate in the 2001 task force. The president of Shell Oil said his company did not participate “to my knowledge,” and the chief of BP America Inc. said he did not know.
Your conservative ethics lesson for today: It’s okay to lie as long as you’re not under oath.
2 Responses to “Lying SOBs: Thursday Edition”
That’s lame.
As Stevens pointed out, lying to Congress is a crime, oath or no oath. This is just another example of Democrats showboating.
Comment by intellectually_honest on November 17, 2005 at 7:08 pm.
[…] Times have changed. We’ve apparently forgotten about that nasty bump we hit while driving those throaty-sounding V8’s in the early seventies. Nowadays we all drive SUVs and parrot “of course the free flow of petroleum is a national security matter!” As long as their stocks are performing, we bump elbows and wink when a group of oil company executives are caught in a bold-faced lie. […]
Comment by MOsanthrope » Blog Archive » Preparation W on January 23, 2006 at 8:01 pm.