Why Obama Represents Bush's Third Term
July 3, 2008
John McCain's top economic policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, recently said in a PBS interview that Sen. Barack Obama, if elected, would guarantee a Bush third term.
"It is Barack Obama's budget plan, not Senator McCain's, that resembles Bush's policies," Holtz-Eakin told Judy Woodruff.
Now isn't that the kind of vague, unsubstantiated criticism we've come to expect from the high-paid staff working on this year's presidential campaigns? Jeez, opposition research just doesn't merit the same attention to detail anymore - unless your opponent happens to be named Clinton. And with that beleaguered candidate sidelined for the moment, the job of sifting facts from all the jabber on the stump now rests with those unsung journalists of cyberspace. Far from chanting the mantra "Yes, we can" each morning before heading off to Starbucks, these folks live by the adage "Have Google, will travel." Of course, some of us rely on that other trusted rubric handed down through the ages: "If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, walks like a rat..." etc., etc.
But getting back to the notorious McCain slime machine, the bad news here - or good, depending on your preferred candidate - is that Holtz-Eakin is right. While his inane budget reference comes out of right field, there's plenty of other evidence to indicate Obama will do a far better Bush impersonation than probably even Bush himself.
And the proof, my friends, is in the hyperlinks:
1. Obama's presidential campaign is supported by investment banks tied to the market speculation of oil prices.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama's top 15 campaign contributors include the investment firms Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Securities. In particular Goldman Sachs has been propping up the hope and change candidate for some years now, even when he was still a relative unknown with no grassroots network or any real resume to run on. Now the four banks have surfaced as players in the scheme to vault the cost of crude to over $140 a barrel. The scam involves massive purchases of oil futures on the London stock exchange to create a shortage of the commodity and thereby drive up prices. (It's similar to what Enron did in California when it ordered power plants offline to cause rolling blackouts, then charged the state inflated rates to buy electricity from other plants.) Goldman Sachs places first in Obama's record-breaking haul of donations this year, with $571,000 collected on his behalf so far.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
http://www.northplattebulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&storyID=14690&pageID=3 (ICE Futures scheme)
To make the Illinois senator's oil slick even stickier, in March his handlers began running an ad that claimed he didn't take money from lobbyists or the oil companies. Was it a pre-emptive strike in the face of rising gas prices? Hard to say. According to factcheck.org, the TV and radio spots failed woefully in the accuracy department, although CNN incessantly repeated a clip of the candidate himself making the claim in the lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary. Obama has received about a quarter million dollars from gas and oil industry executives, their employees and spouses this year. And those donations were rolling in even as his ads saturated the airwaves.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_oil_spill.html
The Annenberg Public Policy Center (which maintains the Factcheck site) also noted in its analysis that "two oil industry executives are bundling money for Obama drumming up contributions from individuals and turning them over to the campaign. George Kaiser, the chairman of Oklahoma-based Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., ranks 68th on the Forbes list of world billionaires. He's listed on Obama's Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the candidate. Robert Cavnar is president and CEO of Milagro Exploration LLC, an oil exploration and production company. He's named as a bundler in the same category as Kaiser."
This behind-the-scenes gravy train may explain why Obama's response to the gas crisis has been surprisingly lackadaisical. While Sen. Clinton was harassing the Bush Administration to order a D.O.J. inquiry into the market scam and close the Enron loophole, Obama was sliming both her and McCain for their proposal to make oil companies pay the gas tax this summer out of their windfall profits. His solution? Detroit should start building more fuel-efficient cars and Americans need to do a better job of conservation. Car and Driver takes issue with his hypocrisy on both scores, pointing out that the Clintons and John McCain drive hybrids, while the Obamas prefer a gas-guzzling Chrysler 300C. Writer Jared Gall bristled with derision, exclaiming "... every time he starts that V-8, he's choking dolphins and using the corpses to club baby seals."
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...ic_cars/what_would_barack_obama_drive_feature
As for his commitment to alternative energy, you might want to take another look at that donor list. Nuclear giant Exelon was his fourth biggest contributor in 2006 and this year made the top 15 again. It's money well spent, too, since the firm got its quid pro quo from Obama a couple years back when he took the teeth out of legislation requiring public disclosure of radiation leaks. In 2005, Obama voted for the Cheney energy bill, a measure that caused such heartburn for environmentalists, they sued the Veep over his secret meetings with coal, oil, and gas producers. Both McCain and Clinton opposed the Cheney pork barrel scam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?
2. Obama's economic advisers come from the University of Chicago, where the Milton Friedman/Alan Greenspan model of free markets run amuck is paving the way for an age of neo-feudalism.
Regarding the candidate's position on this complicated science of supply and demand, progressive journalist Naomi Klein has published a new article in the June 30th issue of The Nation. Klein says Obama's choice of advisors suggests no real policy shift from the past eight years.
"Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, 'Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market,'" the story opens. "Demonstrating that this is no mere spring fling, he has appointed 37-year-old Jason Furman to head his economic policy team. Furman is one of Wal-Mart's most prominent defenders..."
Klein continues: "Another of Obama's Chicago fans is 39-year-old billionaire Kenneth Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. Griffin, who gave the maximum allowable donation to Obama, is something of a poster boy for an unbalanced economy. He got married at Versailles and had the after-party at Marie Antoinette's vacation spot (Cirque du Soleil performed)--and he is one of the staunchest opponents of closing the hedge-fund tax loophole. While Obama talks about toughening trade rules with China, Griffin has been bending the few barriers that do exist. Despite sanctions prohibiting the sale of police equipment to China, Citadel has been pouring money into controversial China-based security companies that are putting the local population under unprecedented levels of surveillance."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein
Those of us following the election are already familiar with Obama's former chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee. He's another University of Chicago boy. Klein, who is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, explained that Milton Friedman first set out some decades ago to reverse Roosevelt's New Deal from his perch at the the university's school of economics.When he died in 2006, Goolsbee penned one of the few appreciations that appeared in the New York Times. And shortly before the Ohio/Texas primaries, a memo from a Canadian official surfaced that revealed that Goolsbee assured diplomats at that country's Chicago consulate that Obama's tough talk on the campaign stump about NAFTA was more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/politics/04nafta.html?
Of course, Obama delivered his historic address on the U.S. economy March 27th. Introduced by billionaire media mogul and mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, according to USA Today, the superbly crafted opus was "followed by a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at the offices of Credit Suisse, which has been entangled with the sub prime loan issue." Meanwhile, rival Hillary Clinton, that shill of the party establishment, attended a series of roundtable discussions featuring teary-eyed homeowners telling their tales of predatory lending horrors to the traveling press corps.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-27-democrats_N.ht
Not every borrower was scammed by the banks, however. Obama got a cut rate on his own home mortgage from Northern Trust that saved him approximate $300 per month. And with the nation grapping with the worst foreclosure crisis since the Depression, our presumptive nominee tapped Jim Johnson, the former CEO of Fannie Mae, to head his VP search team. Fannie Mae enjoyed a close fiduciary relationship with Countrywide Financial Corp., one of the top lenders implicated in the sub prime meltdown. The Los Angeles Times reported that Johnson obtained reduced rates from Countrywide on a mortgage of his own. "He also has been criticized for compensation and other perks he received as an official of mortgage giant Fannie Mae and for compensation decisions made while he was a board member of United HealthCare, one of the nation's biggest medical insurers." The VP vetter eventually relinquished his heavy assignment with the Obamas campaign.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-johnson12-2008jun12,0,1290201.story
3. Obama has interviewed two Republicans to serve as secretary of defense and secretary of state in his administration, if elected.
According to a March 2nd article in the London Times, Obama interviewed G.O.P. Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard Lugar of Indiana for posts in a potential cabinet. Hagel said back in 2004 that he was interested in the presidency and has been distancing himself from the Bush Administration ever since. A former lobbyist for Firestone, he served in the Reagan Administration before moving to Nebraska in 1992 to run an investment banking firm. He's also the former CEO of Election Systems & Software, one of the country's top manufacturers of electronic voting machines. Incredibly, Hagel openly criticized John McCain and expressed support for Obama during the primaries, yet remains in good standing with his party.
Lugar, who sponsored the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (see article on ICE Futures above), is being considered as a possible secretary of state. Since Obama first arrived in Washington in 2005, Lugar has gone out of his way to maintain good relations him, even though the two men have little (if anything) in common. That year, the former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee brought Obama with him on a trip to inspect nuclear facilities in Russia. He even added Obama's name to his non-proliferation measure that the President signed into law in January 2007. It's referred to as "The Lugar-Obama bill". Once considered a reliable vote for the Bush Administration, Lugar appeared to break ranks with his boss over the Iraq War last year when he gave a speech criticizing its conduct. He later tempered his remarks, insisting that timetables and benchmarks don't belong in congressional legislation. (None are included in the latest war-funding bill.)
Of the two prospective cabinet picks, the London Times story added, "Larry Korb, a defence official under President Ronald Reagan who is backing Obama, said: 'By putting a Republican in the Pentagon and the State Department you send a signal to Congress and the American people that issues of national security are above politics."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3466823.ece
Recently, Hagel announced that he would be interested in the VP spot on Obama's ticket. The candidate has since remarked that Robert Gates would make a great defense secretary. Was this supposed to be a joke?
Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell with Obama. As his acolytes in the media like to remind us, he's still "introducing himself to Americans." Of course, Gates we already know something about. Before being tapped by the current President Bush, he served as the top staffer to CIA Director William Casey during the Reagan/Bush Administration. After the Iran-Contra scandal was exposed, Casey died of a brain tumor before Congress could question him, and the Senate subsequently rejected Gates as his successor. Two decades later, he was confirmed to replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, and now stands accused of turning a blind eye to Iraq corruption scandals involving Halliburton/KBR and the security firm Blackwater.
4. Obama has been linked to war profiteering.
Speaking of Iraq, Obama may not be the unwavering anti-war candidate that he has led us to believe. For one thing, there's no independent corroboration that the speech he claimed to have given in 2002 ever actually took place. Moreover, his long-time benefactor Tony Rezko (who raised $4 million for President Bush's re-election campaign) is close friends with two Iraqi exiles tied to U.S. foreign policy. The website Rezko Watch has tracked the rap sheets for these three chums through stories in the New York Times and Chicago dailies. Aiham Alsammarae was appointed as Iraq's Minister of Electricity by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and soon afterward signed a contract with Rezko to build a power plant in Iraqi Kurdistan. Like many other exiles appointed by L. Paul bremmer, Alsammarae is now accused of stealing $650 million reconstruction aid. Thanks to Blackwater's help, he made an Al Capone-style escape from a Baghdad jail in late 2006. Lucky thing,too, because the former minister and current fugitive was back in Ilinois last winter to donate $2,300 online to the senator's presidential campaign.
Which begs the question: where's the rest of the $649,997,700, Aiham? (Anyone with leads, please contact Greta Van Susteren.)
http://rezkowatch.blogspot.com/2008/02/rezko-and-alsamarrae-corruption-in-iraq.html
5. Obama has promised to expand Bush's controversial "faith-based initiative", which funnels millions of tax dollars each year to religious organizations, many which oppose some civil rights.
In an attempt to woo right-wing evangelical voters away from McCain, Barack Obama has recently called for an expansion of the President's program to transfer funding for social programs away from traditional nonprofits and into the coffers of churches instead. Speaking at a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, the candidate promised that the faith-based initiative would be "central" to his administration. A $500 million package involving a public/private "partnership" is already on the drawing board, no doubt keeping hope alive for convicted housing project developer Rezko, who specializes in such collaborations.
"Every house of worship that wants to run an effective program and that's willing to abide by our constitution - from the largest mega-churches and synagogues to the smallest store-front churches and mosques - can and will have access to the information and support they need to run that program," Obama said. Since many church programs, including the Salvation Army, have long-running antipathy towards lesbians and gays, and are also biased against women's rights because of other religious tenets, civil liberties groups like the ACLU have frowned on the initiative ever since it was first introduced. The Bush Administration, however, took extra measures to implement it, establishing special oversight offices at many federal agencies to make sure the religious groups got their fair share of contracts.
http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/obama_backs_faithbased_service.html
John DiIulio, who served as the first director of Bushs office on faith based initiatives, told the New York Times, Senator Barack Obama has offered a principled, prudent, and problem-solving vision for the future of community-serving partnerships involving religious nonprofit organizations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02campaigncnd.html?
Johanna Neuman, a Los Angeles Times blogger, even compared the language Obama used in his speech with that of the President speaking on previous occasions.
Obama: "The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone."
Bush: "Bureaucracies can put money in people's hands, but they cannot put hope in a person's heart."
Obama: "Change comes not from the top down but from the bottom up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples and mosques."
Bush: "Groups like yours have harnessed a power that no government bureaucracy can match."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/07/bushs-faith-bas.html
Yes, but it's how that power is unleashed that tends to make people worry.
6. Obama supports warrantless surveillance, including the FISA bill.
Salon correspondent Glenn Greenwald nailed Obama's flip-flop on FISA and telecom immunity down to the brass tacks when he wrote on June 21st, "What had been a vicious assault on our Constitution, and corrupt complicity to conceal Bush lawbreaking, magically and instantaneously transformed into a perfectly understandable position, even a shrewd and commendable decision, that we should not only accept, but be grateful for as undertaken by Obama for our Own Good."
Setting aside an earlier commitment to filibuster the bill, Obama said last week that he supports the (alleged) compromise that strips many safeguards from the 1978 FISA Act. The new measure legalizes the eavesdropping activities conducted by the Administration beginning in 2001, even though they violate the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. Obama's spokespeople have erroneously stated that the original legislation was about to expire, forcing the candidate's hand.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/21/obama/
Greenwald isn't alone in feeling a little betrayed. Members of the group MoveOn.org have joined civil liberties proponents in raising money to lobby Obama and other Democrats to reverse their positions before the bill comes to a vote in the full senate on July 8th. (Too bad they can't get a refund on their previous donations.)
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/telecom-amnes-1.html
To be sure, the timing of the FISA vote is puzzling. Republicans seem unphased about the prospect of a President Obama using the snooping powers to gather dirt on them. One would think they'd prefer to wait until after November before painting a bull's eye on their own foreheads. Even a McCain presidency may prove no picnic for the hardcore neocons who have for years backed the Bush family crime spree and all the potential liability that goes with the territory. It makes you wonder if they know something about this election that the rest of us don't - like who's going to win and how Karl Rove is pulling it off. (See the "Bamboozling" article below for more on this.)
- Rosemary Regello
editor@thecityedition.com
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