PEN-L message, Safire on Arthur Andersen

Andersengate

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/opinion/14SAFI.html?todaysheadlines

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"The dozen or so investigations may turn up something to embarrass the White House, especially if Bush pulls another "executive privilege" when Congress wants facts. But the scandal I see in this corporate debacle is non- political; it's professional.

"This affair shows the accounting profession all too often to be in bed with the oldest profession. Accounting standards have been frequently prostituted by the new Uriah Heeps: these are executives in ever-merging firms afraid to challenge their clients' phony numbers and secret self-dealing because they might lose fees in the lucrative consulting business they run on the side.

"These no-account accountants seem to forget that the "p" in C.P.A. means "public." The Big Five are silent about Andersengate because they are eager to become the Big Four by carving up their competitor's carcass. That's why it's harder to find a major bean-counter willing to condemn publicly the failures of Arthur Andersen & Co. than to find a top Muslim cleric willing to criticize Osama bin Laden.

"Although Andersen executives may try to cop a plea by ratting on the client they so supinely and profitably enabled, they must explain why, as the biggest bankruptcy in history loomed, their supervisors were so eager to remind those working on the Enron account to destroy records.

"Self-dealing; asset-hiding; insider stock-dumping — all these were supposedly beyond the ken of an audit committee and legal counsel blindly reliant on the ethics and standards of "professional" accountants."

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