The Question

Larry King hyped all day long that he'd be asking the President about the death of his friend Ken Lay. He finally got around to it late in the interview, and here was the response:

President Bush said Thursday he hopes Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay's "heart was right with the Lord" when he died before he could be sentenced on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Bush called Lay, who was a friend of the Bush family and a large donor to the president's campaign, "a good guy." He said he was shocked to hear both about the Enron scandal and Lay's death this week from a heart attack at age 64.

"I was really surprised," Bush said on CNN's "Larry King Live." "You know, my hope is that his heart was right with the Lord and I feel real sorry for his wife. She's had a rough go and she's now here on earth to bear the burdens of losing her husband, a man she loved."

The president said he planned to write Linda Lay a letter expressing his condolences.

He actually didn't say that until after Laura was asked about it, and if you watch the video (as I did) it was pretty much an afterthought.

I agree with this commenter that there was almost no good answer to this question for Bush. He has been ducking the relationship with Lay for four years, and anything he said now would be somewhat insincere. Still, he did about as good as he could do with it. He sort of straddled the line, expressing sympathy for the wife but keeping a safe distance from Lay's wrongdoing, saying something like "I'm disappointed that he swindled all those shareholders." So, Bush did OK. It was a tough spot. It was a tough spot because he didn't come out in 2002 and acknowledge the friendship instead of parsing and equivocating and ducking. He had to get cornered by Larry King the day after the death to open up a bit.

What I really think is that Tony Snow grossly underserved his President with his flip, combative and dismissive comments the day before. I wonder if he'll be asked about this at the press briefing tomorrow.

There, I've done all I can do with "Lay-Gate." Moving on.