Okla-homey
2/5/2006, 09:00 AM
as if you needed one...
Former Enron "slimeball-in-chief" Ken Lay's lawyer calls Oklahoma a former "penal colony.":eek: Them's fightin' words counselor. See ya in October.
Lawyer disses state
By JOHN STANCAVAGE
Tulsa World
Business editor
2/5/2006
In the blizzard of name-calling, accusations, punches, counter-punches, rants and rhetoric that marked the beginning of the criminal trial of former Enron Corp. executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling last week, there was one quote that stood out as truly bizarre.
During opening statements Tuesday in Houston, Lay's attorney, Mike Ramsey, was quoted by the Associated Press and other news organizations as saying his client as CEO was responsible for Enron going into bankruptcy, but was not a criminal just because the energy company melted down.
"Failure is not a crime," Ramsey told the jury, according to reporters covering the trial. "Bankruptcy is not a crime. If it were, we would have to turn Oklahoma back into a penal colony because there would be so many people to lock up."
What? BACK into a penal colony?
I took honors history at East Central High School here in Tulsa and don't ever remember being taught about a time when the state was nicknamed the slammer, the joint or the gray-bar hotel.
I can't recall seeing any grainy black-and-white photos of our borders being fenced with barbed wire.
I don't think our early settlers spent their time wielding pickaxes and splitting rocks.
Ramsey's fact-challenged statement was buried in most news accounts of the trial's opening day, but it still attracted some attention.
National Public Radio noted Ramsey's comment on its "All Things Considered" news show. Reporter Wade Goodman, who's covering the trial, told host Robert Siegel that he thought Ramsey meant that if going bankrupt was a crime, it would take a state the size of Oklahoma to hold all the guilty executives.
Loren Steffy, who is blogging the trial for the Houston Chronicle, noted on the newspaper's Web site that one outraged Okie had some serious issues with a more literal reading of the description of the Sooner State.
"When was it a penal colony? . . . Oklahoma was Indian Territory. Is he implying that the Native Americans were a bunch of felons? The same ones that died by the thousands when the U.S. government sent them there along the Trail of Tears?"
Here in Oklahoma, State Chamber president Richard Rush was appalled.
"What a horribly misguided, inappropriate and insensitive reference to Oklahoma," Rush said. "To even indicate that we ever were a penal colony is just an attorney's attempt to deflect other issues."
Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, confirmed to me the state never was a giant penitentiary. "There's nothing close to that in our history," Blackburn said. "Maybe (Ramsey) is still hurting from all the times OU has beaten Texas." [you go Dr. Bob!]
Outside of Oklahoma, the response was not all negative. A person posting on Steffy's blog said he found that Ramsey's "down-home ability to communicate with the jury about this complex case was inspiring." Anyway, he added, "Texans love Okie jokes."
It's hard for many of us to classify Ramsey's statement as a joke, though.
Of course, we in Oklahoma love a good Texas tale, too.
I remember how entertained we were by the 2003 story of more than 50 Texas Democrats who fled to Oklahoma to prevent a quorum in the GOP-run House -- a tactic to kill a redistricting plan that would have cost them five seats in Congress.
The legislators holed up in an Ardmore hotel for four days and rebuked police officers who sought to return them to Austin. But I guess in that incident, Oklahoma was the safe house, not the Big House.
If Lay does get convicted, I'll bet that after Ramsey's slur Oklahoma would be only too happy to welcome the executive. I'm sure we could make room at the federal lock-up in El Reno.
John Stancavage 581-8314
[email protected]
Former Enron "slimeball-in-chief" Ken Lay's lawyer calls Oklahoma a former "penal colony.":eek: Them's fightin' words counselor. See ya in October.
Lawyer disses state
By JOHN STANCAVAGE
Tulsa World
Business editor
2/5/2006
In the blizzard of name-calling, accusations, punches, counter-punches, rants and rhetoric that marked the beginning of the criminal trial of former Enron Corp. executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling last week, there was one quote that stood out as truly bizarre.
During opening statements Tuesday in Houston, Lay's attorney, Mike Ramsey, was quoted by the Associated Press and other news organizations as saying his client as CEO was responsible for Enron going into bankruptcy, but was not a criminal just because the energy company melted down.
"Failure is not a crime," Ramsey told the jury, according to reporters covering the trial. "Bankruptcy is not a crime. If it were, we would have to turn Oklahoma back into a penal colony because there would be so many people to lock up."
What? BACK into a penal colony?
I took honors history at East Central High School here in Tulsa and don't ever remember being taught about a time when the state was nicknamed the slammer, the joint or the gray-bar hotel.
I can't recall seeing any grainy black-and-white photos of our borders being fenced with barbed wire.
I don't think our early settlers spent their time wielding pickaxes and splitting rocks.
Ramsey's fact-challenged statement was buried in most news accounts of the trial's opening day, but it still attracted some attention.
National Public Radio noted Ramsey's comment on its "All Things Considered" news show. Reporter Wade Goodman, who's covering the trial, told host Robert Siegel that he thought Ramsey meant that if going bankrupt was a crime, it would take a state the size of Oklahoma to hold all the guilty executives.
Loren Steffy, who is blogging the trial for the Houston Chronicle, noted on the newspaper's Web site that one outraged Okie had some serious issues with a more literal reading of the description of the Sooner State.
"When was it a penal colony? . . . Oklahoma was Indian Territory. Is he implying that the Native Americans were a bunch of felons? The same ones that died by the thousands when the U.S. government sent them there along the Trail of Tears?"
Here in Oklahoma, State Chamber president Richard Rush was appalled.
"What a horribly misguided, inappropriate and insensitive reference to Oklahoma," Rush said. "To even indicate that we ever were a penal colony is just an attorney's attempt to deflect other issues."
Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, confirmed to me the state never was a giant penitentiary. "There's nothing close to that in our history," Blackburn said. "Maybe (Ramsey) is still hurting from all the times OU has beaten Texas." [you go Dr. Bob!]
Outside of Oklahoma, the response was not all negative. A person posting on Steffy's blog said he found that Ramsey's "down-home ability to communicate with the jury about this complex case was inspiring." Anyway, he added, "Texans love Okie jokes."
It's hard for many of us to classify Ramsey's statement as a joke, though.
Of course, we in Oklahoma love a good Texas tale, too.
I remember how entertained we were by the 2003 story of more than 50 Texas Democrats who fled to Oklahoma to prevent a quorum in the GOP-run House -- a tactic to kill a redistricting plan that would have cost them five seats in Congress.
The legislators holed up in an Ardmore hotel for four days and rebuked police officers who sought to return them to Austin. But I guess in that incident, Oklahoma was the safe house, not the Big House.
If Lay does get convicted, I'll bet that after Ramsey's slur Oklahoma would be only too happy to welcome the executive. I'm sure we could make room at the federal lock-up in El Reno.
John Stancavage 581-8314
[email protected]