Rescue attempts.

While Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan tries to assuage the market (something Dubya is seemingly incapable of), the Senate and House pass measures to stifle corporate malfeasance (and the stock market free-fall), thanks to a Republican “deathbed conversion.”

Running for Cover.

“In the long run, there’s no capitalism without conscience. There is no wealth without character.” I dunno, Mr. President…you seemed to do pretty well for yourself. In his much-anticipated speech yesterday, Dubya tried to put the brakes on the Wall Street sell-off and quell the growing questions surrounding his own stock shadiness (timeline here.) Needless to say, it didn’t seem to work.

Sinking deeper.

As Worldcom execs take the fifth and both Congress and the Dubya administration prep for damage control (for the latter, in a Wall Street speech tomorrow,) White House strategists look desperately for a way to avoid being hoisted by their own petard. Says Dubya of his Vice-President, who’s in deep with the Halliburton scandal: “There are good actors and there are bad actors; he’s one of the good guys.” May work for terrorists, George…doesn’t work so well for executive profiteers.

Hitting .333.

Frank Rich weighs in with another discerning op-ed on Enrongate, in which he notes that the Bush administration has significant ties to FIVE of the companies currently under scrutiny – Enron, Halliburton, Andersen, KMPG and Merrill Lynch (which is why, of course, Dubya keeps talking about WorldCom.)

End of the Worldcom.

Joining Enron and Martha Stewart in infamy, Worldcom cooks the books for $3.8 billion. It’s not like either the telecom industry or the economy at large need another hit right now, and this one’s going to be a doozy. Good news for the Dems, at least, but I wonder what this’ll mean for UUNet. Update: Bush vows a probe into the situation. Hey, let’s not forget about Enron there, bud.