Friday, May 30, 2008

Signs of Things to Come - Obama's Transparency Hypocrisy

Barack Obama’s campaign tries to play “count the lobbyist” with John McCain. Now I don’t accept the lobbyist = bad equation, and so I think that this is all a little trivial.

But hypocrisy is not trivial. Let’s do a little recount of the lobbyists around Obama.

There’s Jim Johnson, who I have previously written about. Johnson has represented the former Prime Minister of Senegal, and as CEO of Fannie Mae, he improperly disclosed profits that resulted in him getting a big bonus he didn’t deserve. Obama put this lobbyist-fundraiser-foreign-agent in charge of picking his Vice Presidential candidate.

There’s Francisco J. Pavía, his Puerto Rico state director, and a lobbyist for the Government of Puerto Rico. That violates Obama’s lobbyist policy. What have they done about that?

There’s his chief strategist David Axelrod, may not be exactly a lobbyist but certainly represents a lot of those corporations that Obama condemns. Obama said “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.” I guess that the corporate lobbyists are elemental evil, while corporate admen and astroturfers are all good.

Read it here

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