Both Teapot and Enron involved energy policy, privatization and corruption. And like Teapot Dome's "Ohio gang" of ethically loose Harding cronies, oilmen and administration officials--energy deregulation during the first Bush administration, through the Clinton years and George W.'s time as governor of Texas on up till today has been warped and feasted upon by a Texas-led "Enron gang." In both scandals, some Democrats were involved, but the power centers of misbehavior were Republican. Yet, there has been nothing quite like the rise and fall of Enron in U.S. history, certainly no plausible comparison since the late-19th-century heyday of railroads and robber barons. The sums in Enron's collapse certainly overshadow those in Teapot, much as a space shuttle does a Model T Ford. More important, not in memory has a single major company grown so big in tandem with a presidential dynasty and a corrupted political system. Indeed, the Bush family has been a prominent and well-rewarded rung in Enron's climb to national political influence.

Why is this more than just a very big business failure? Because the US markets, and the array of institutions that constitute them, are supposed to be a model. When the Asian crisis hit, crony capitalism took much of the blame. The definition of sound policies was broadened to include a call for countries to put into place strong market infrastructure, including more rigorous accounting standards, better regulation, stricter disclosure and stronger corporate governance. As the international community struggled to define this new consensus, it was often to US examples that it turned, albeit grudgingly. And where there were big differences, those of us representing the US were typically reluctant to cede the case. This is harder to justify now.

Our investigation identified significant problems beyond those Enron has already disclosed. Enron employees involved in the partnerships were enriched, in the aggregate, by tens of millions of dollars they should never have received -- Fastow by at least $30 million, Kopper by at least $10 million, two others by $1 million each, and still two more by amounts we believe were at least in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have seen no evidence that any of these employees, except Fastow, obtained the permission required by Enron's Code of Conduct of Business Affairs to own interests in the partnerships. Moreover, the extent of Fastow's ownership and financial windfall was inconsistent with his representations to Enron's Board of Directors.

This personal enrichment of Enron employees, however, was merely one aspect of a deeper and more serious problem. These partnerships -- Chewco, LJM1, and LJM2 -- were used by Enron Management to enter into transactions that it could not, or would not, do with unrelated commercial entities. Many of the most significant transactions apparently were designed to accomplish favorable financial statement results, not to achieve bona fide economic objectives or to transfer risk. Some transactions were designed so that, had they followed applicable accounting rules, Enron could have kept assets and liabilities (especially debt) off of its balance sheet; but the transactions did not follow those rules.

"You've got to credit Jeb Bush," said Richard Scher, professor of political science at the University of Florida at Gainesville. "He's been wonderful in keeping the issue quiet. Nothing has been coming out. He's been very shrewd in how he's handled it politically and lucky the legislature is in session and drawing attention away. The Enron Florida angle has not come home to roost yet."

I saw this week that President Bush is `outraged' by the Enron scandal, and I know I should be too, but there's a lot I still don't get. For starters, what kind of company is Enron, exactly?

Enron is a new-economy company, a thinking-outside-the-box, paradigm-shifting, market-making company. In fact, it ranked as the most innovative company in America four years in a row, as judged by envious corporate peers in the annual Fortune magazine poll. It is also, at this point in time, a bankrupt company.

I meant, what does Enron do?

Enron's initial efforts in 1996 to persuade Congress to change the law were thwarted by opposition from a powerful trade group and some federal regulators. The company responded by hiring the former boss of a leading staff official at the Securities and Exchange Commission to represent it in negotiations with the agency. In an unheralded five-paragraph order in March 1997, the S.E.C. official, Barry P. Barbash, gave Enron's foreign operations a broad exemption from the law -- the Investment Company Act of 1940.

A New York firm that bought Enron stock for Florida's pension fund is being investigated for possible conflict of interest because it allowed an executive to sit on the failed energy-trading company's board.

State officials said Thursday that they did not learn until late last year that Frank Savage, a top executive of Alliance Capital Management Corp., was a member of the Enron board.