Finally, two of the terrorists who attacked America in 2001 are being brought to justice in a Houston courtroom. This pair, Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, did not carry box cutters onto commercial flights or invoke the name of Allah, but in their own way they did as much to destroy the fabric of American society as any hireling of Osama bin Laden could have hoped to accomplish. On their watch, and partly due to their crimes of commission and omission, the nation's seventh-largest company, with 31,000 employees and a stock value of $35 billion, was wiped out. In the process, the life savings of several thousand families was erased and American financial markets sent into a tailspin. Lay, for all his mealy-mouthed pronouncements of innocence, was captain of Enron, and he's as culpable as the drunk who manned the helm of the Exxon Valdez . On the eve of his company's collapse, Lay unloaded his worthless Enron holdings while chirping a happy tune to his shipmates to keep theirs. He, essentially, told the passengers on the sinking tanker that everything was fine while he was climbing into a lifeboat. Skilling was his slithering sidekick, but Lay is the Fat Cat whose guilty verdict would actually mean something to most Americans.

Though it's a trial many have eagerly anticipated, now that it's here I have a bad feeling in my gut about it. For starters, the judge, Simeon Lake III, is a Reagan appointee. He is also a stickler for "efficiency," having cemented this reputation by selecting the jury in a single day, a feat many thought impossible, if not suspicious. Indeed, it was a bad sign when Lay himself expressed satisfaction with the selected jury, and Lay's lawyer called the jurors "better educated than most." That's code for saying the little people — the unemployed, underemployed, working class, single mom, black person, the folks really scuffling in Houston's scandal-deflated economy — can't be trusted with the fate of big fish like Lay and Skillings, that they'd be above their station, out of their league.

Another disquieting aspect of this trial is that all charges against Lay, a close friend of Bush and Cheney and a major contributor to their 2000 election campaign, are confined just to the last months prior to Enron´s collapse. This guy is the embodiment of white-collar criminal; his entire career is built on lies, deception, back-room deals, and false fronts to attract gullible investors. But only those final hours are on trial. Innocent until proven guilty? Please. That´s so pre-2001. The only way Lay and Skilling will lose this case is if one or the other turns on their "comrade." They've already jointly passed the buck to former Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, an easy target as he's in prison for the next 10 years. They may live to regret their back-stabbing, though. Fastow is set to testify against both men. I hope I'm wrong but my gut says Lay and Skilling will walk. Oh, they'll get some meaningless suspended sentence but they'll keep their billions and their seven homes and horses and exclusive penthouses and will, within five years, be major players again in the national Republican Party. It's the same feeling I get about the outcome of elections in states where Diebold voting machines are used or of any internal investigations at the White House or any probe by the Ethics Committee in the U.S. House. Between them, Lay and Skilling are spending $20 million — money they stole from Enron investors — on their defense.

Money talks, losers walk, at least in Texas.