After watching this video, I’m assuming the Senator meant that his Vice Presidential selection committee have a discrete task and not a discreet one. That said, it’s still fascinating that he feels free to go after others for having dealings with someone with a questionable background, but apparently doesn’t think he should be held to the same standard.
Yeah, this is the guy who’s gonna transform our politics. :-)
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Questionable ties? If sartorial criticisms are the worst they can come up with, Obama’s a shoo-in. ;)
I guess maybe the video doesn’t give enough detail. The people in question have ties to Abramoff and to other questionable financial institutions and lobbyists that Obama’s gone after McCain on. It’s pretty typical pot/kettle/black stuff; apparently, it’s okay to bash McCain for having staff ties to questionable lobbyists, but Obama can bring people into major roles in his campaign with ties equally questionable and sluff it off by saying their role is "discrete" and that they aren’t paid so even though they’re helping him pick his Vice President their backgrounds don’t matter a whit. %-)
He has no judgement when it comes to people.
Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Johnson, Holder…As best I can tell, he considers character to be irrelevant.
Dishman,
what, exactly, are obama’s ties with Ayers?
Dishman –
Those are his peeps, man. Read up in his book – he sought out the most radical crowd he could, early on.
Plus that and he’s Hyde Park. You don’t get up there without being in with the most famous residents.
As near as I can tell, Ayers helped Obama get started in politics. Beyond that, I’m not sure. Google reports 307,000 hits on the search term "Obama Ayers".
"apparently, it’s okay to bash McCain for having staff ties to questionable lobbyists…"
I’d say that there’s a pretty big difference between having someone on staff for VP selection who turned out to have questionable dealings on an unrelated issue and having your co-chair in charge of formulating your mortgage crisis policy BE a paid lobbyist for the banking industry.
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Really? So the people in charge of the single most important appointment in your administration, the possible next President of the United States, and the first truly major decision you will make as potential President, is nowhere near as important as a policy wonk? That seems odd thinking to me.
Oh, and, uh, so should your people in charge of formulating banking policy be people who have never worked in the banking industry?
(And, a Keith Olbermann link for pity’s sake? He’s like Bill O’Reilly only dumber.)
Oh, and, uh, so should your people in charge of formulating banking policy be people who have never worked in the banking industry?
Duh, Dean. Only people in the public sector are trustworthy. People who work for profit-making corporations are inherently suspect.
People over profits! (Even if that kills people…)
Dishman,
Numbers of google results don’t really impress me. Obviously this is not the first mention of an Obama-Ayers connection. My question is WHAT is the nature of the connection?Â
I have seen nothing to suggest that Ayers had anything to do with Obama’s political career besides donating $200 to a re-election campaign. Is there anything concrete to this besides idle speculation or ‘OMG they attended the same fundraiser’?
Dean,
come on. the issue is not one of where they worked but when they worked. obviously there is a conflict of interest if one is formulating policy at the same time they are receiving a salary from a party that would be affected by the very policy one is formulating.
Come on, what?
Phil Gramm, a former Senator as it happens (and thus a well-known political entity and someone John McCain knew and worked with for years), did some work for a Swiss bank for a couple of years back in the early 2000s, and as an economist (he has a PhD in it I believe) and former member of the Senate Budget committee he has a firm background. His association with the bank was fully legal and fully disclosed and quite above-board.
Lobbying is legal activity–Constitutionally protected by the 1st amendment, in fact. So what, other than Olbermann’s self-aggrandizement and trademark desire to find scandal and sleaze where there is none, are we supposed to be up in arms about exactly?
I would agree that this is the chickens coming home to roost to a certain extent–McCain’s "maverick" stance against lobbyists was always foolish–but I’m not seeing why exactly we’re not supposed to notice Obama’s own hypocrisy here, especially from Mister “I will change everything about the old way of doing business in Washington.” Are lobbyists with actual corrupt ties a problem, or just lobbyists in general? And is heading your Vice Presidential Selection committee an important and serious job or is it not?
Ahhhh… I’m feeling too lazy to dig out the link right now.
There are suggestions that Ayers was responsible for Obama getting the job at Woods Fund (where they worked together).
Dean,
Of course there’s nothing wrong with lobbyists, but lobbyists are paid to be hyper-partisan and have only the interests of their clients at heart, to the exclusion of all else. Note that there’s nothing wrong with this, of course.
BUT, having a person who’s on someone else’s payroll (it wasn’t just a few years in the 2000s, UBS did not take him off the payroll until this April, AFTER the story had broke) head up a major policy division in your camp is a clear conflict of interest. How can that even be controversial?
As I said, it’s not what the lobbyist was doing, it’s WHEN he was doing it.
Dishman,
as this nation article makes clear, Obama began working for the Woods Fund (which did start his career) 6 years before Ayers joined.
I stand corrected, he was lobbying as late as late 2007/early 2008. Again, so frickin’ what? He was also the Vice President of a bank for a little while.
How can it not be controversial? I’ll tell you how: because it’s completely above board and completely legitimate. This reminds me of the insane people I encounter now and then who spout off about Halliburton and Dick Cheney’s relationship to the company, even though every single thing about it is completely legitimate, completely above board, and represents no ethical or legal conflict of interest. Neither does this.
Lobbyists are not "paid to be hyper-partisan and have only the interests of their clients at heart." Sorry, but with respect, you need to learn a *lot* more about what a lobbyist is and does. (And, Senator McCain deserves a lot of the blame for his shamelessly pandering attacks on them, by the way.) While, clearly, some lobbyists are corrupt (name me a profession where that’s not true, please), a lobbyist is no different from a lawyer when he represents the interests of his clients, and he has the same basic ethical requirements as any lawyer, accountant, etc. would have. In fact, he’s arguably got a good deal more.
When you describe for me what exactly Senator Gramm did for his client that’s illegal, immoral, or unethical, besides, you know, make arguments on their behalf, and legislative recommendations, I’ll be impressed. Otherwise, this looks like nothing but more of Keith Olbermann’s flatulent hyper-partisan idiocy masquerading as intelligence.
It’s appalling that this completely legitimate activity is now treated as some sort of automatic form of moral leprosy.
Dean,
so lawyers aren’t supposed to be hyper-partisan on behalf of their client?
I understand all of the ethical obligations lobbyists are under and I don’t accuse Gramm of any bad behavior. But I am saying there was a conflict of interest there. That in itself is an ethical violation. Working for a company you are supposed to be crafting legislation to regulate is a clear conflict of interest. Could there be a clearer case??
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