German Publishing’s Man in the White House
Obama's ties to Bertelsmann are a massive conflict of interest yet to be fully disclosed.
The publicly funded Franco-German “cultural” channel Arte did not waste any time celebrating the dawn of a new era in transatlantic relations. This is the same Arte, incidentally, whose earlier contributions to transatlantic understanding have included a report accusing American soldiers of beheading Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War and a portrayal of President George W. Bush with devil’s horns and fangs. On the day after the election of Barack Obama to succeed the outgoing demon-president, the channel broadcast a 70-minute-long special, live from Washington, with the highly imaginative title “A Black Man in the White House” [Un Noir à la maison blanche]. (To their credit, the editors at Arte-Germany chose to abjure the racist impulses of their French counterparts and titled the show instead “Obama: A New Wind in the White House” [Frischer Wind im Weissen Haus].) The guests on the program included Annette Heuser, the executive director of the Bertelsmann Foundation’s new Washington, DC, office. The influential German foundation set up shop in DC just this past spring, presumably in anticipation of the impending “change.” Host Daniel Leconte revealed that the foundation had even helpfully prepared “a little aide, a little white book” for the incoming president on how to conduct his relations with Europe. He was careful to interject that the “white book” had been prepared for both candidates.
In any case, Bertelsmann can be sure that Mr. Obama will read its “little aide, its little white book” very carefully. For — as Ms. Heuser failed to disclose and as was not mentioned either in an op-ed on Obama that she published in the Washington Post in July — the Bertelsmann Corporation happens to be the president-elect’s principal source of income. It was Bertelsmann, namely, that agreed to pay Obama a reported $1.9 million in advances for a three-book deal that the then-senator-elect signed with its fully owned American subsidiary, the Random House publishing group, in December 2004. And who knows? The real amount of the deal might well be more than the reported amount. After all, it was only in April of this year that we discovered that a reported $10 million book deal signed by former President Bill Clinton with Bertelsmann/Random House in 2001 had in fact been worth $15 million. (See my earlier PJM report on “Bill Clinton’s German Paymasters.”)
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John Rosenthal’s writings on European politics and transatlantic relations have appeared in English, French, and German in such leading publications as Policy Review, Les Temps Modernes, and Merkur. He holds a PhD in philosophy and he taught political philosophy and classical German philosophy before turning to journalism. More of his work can be found at Transatlantic Intelligencer.
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27 Comments
1. German Publishing’s Man in the White House:[...] German Publishing’s Man in the White House Obama’s ties to Bertelsmann are a massive conflict of interest yet to be fully disclosed. [...]
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:31 am 2. Jim:Change we CAN believe in. To the left of corruptness. Yay.
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:07 am 3. Lee:Check your reporting: It is not unusual for agents to “pay authors” as you say. The royalties from the publisher go to the agent who takes his or her 10-15% and then pays the author. I suspect Jane Dystel’s money is for the first book, for which she still gets a percentage of royalties even if Obama fired her before his second book. Check your reporting.
Nov 21, 2008 - 7:11 am 4. Brian Richard Allen:The change is that the self-and-own-cuture-loathing mobbed-up Marxist murtadd Muslim manifestation of Arab-African evil, B Milhous bin B Hussayn bin Hussayn Muhummad Ubambi’s so obscenly profiting from his close companionship with RICO racketeers, ratbag terrorists and from every other imaginable and unimaginable enemy of America and of Individual Liberty is so open to inspection.
This elitist empty galabia has learned from America’s worst and doesn’t care what we see.
Brian Richard Allen
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:01 am 5. Ian Thorpe:Los Angeles – CalifOBAMAcated 90028
Silly numbers are used in quoting book advances (I know from experience) A “million pound book deal” could mean “Here’s £5000 towards expenses, you get £80,000 for 100,000 sales £100,000 for 250,000 sales and then extra guaranteed sums for fiml rights, serialisations etc.
But who can blame Obama for milking his fame. If he is impeached for accepting illegal campaign contributions he is virtually unemployable. His CV barely qualifies him to stack shelves or flip burgers and what minimum wage employer would take on a man who spent most of his career as a civil rights agitator.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:27 am 6. » Pajamas Media » German Publishing’s Man in the White House White House On Best Political Blogs: News And Info On White House:[...] Publishing’s Man in the White House Posted in November 21st, 2008 by in Uncategorized Pajamas Media » German Publishing’s Man in the White House On the day after the election of Barack Obama to succeed the outgoing demon-president, the channel [...]
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:39 am 7. Pajamas Media » German Publishing’s Man in the White House:[...] Pajamas Media » German Publishing’s Man in the White House After all, it was only in April of this year that we discovered that a reported $10 million book deal signed by former President Bill Clinton with Bertelsmann/Random House in 2001 had in fact been worth $15 million. … [...]
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:41 am 8. Self-hating boomer:Surely you jest. He won’t even cough up his Birth Certificate, and having gotten one lawsuit to produce it dismissed, is currently fighting to get another lawsuit dosmissed.
Transparency? Are you kidding?
Nov 21, 2008 - 12:51 pm 9. Robert Hurley:YOU OUGHT TO TRY FICTION
Nov 21, 2008 - 1:55 pm 10. Pee Wee Herman, Community Organizer:Egad. We’re finally starting to see the obots here crack up just like in this news report:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive
Hurley, I think there are 12-step programs.
Nov 21, 2008 - 2:56 pm 11. Marie Claude:ooh la la, I smell a conspiration
I happened to watch Arte, cuz it’s one of the “cultural” medias left in the nowadays medias cafarnaum, didn’t see that they were “anti-americans”, OK Im not a TV watch, but bizarely our immigrants-pro Pals would rather say that Arte is sold to the Americano-sionism lobbie, cuz they can’t see their cause well spread
Nov 21, 2008 - 4:30 pm 12. thegr8_1:Truth is stranger than fiction.
Nov 21, 2008 - 5:55 pm 13. Jeff:This is just another area in which Obama and his leftist illuminati practices are questionable. There are going to be a lot of interesting things that come out of the woodwork over the next four years.
Nov 21, 2008 - 8:31 pm 14. Clem:Help me understand this controversy. A very public and popular politician and his agent sign a book deal with Random House and (OMG!)they get paid for it. That payment is fully disclosed. Because Random House is owned by a German company, you suspect that this politician is now under the direct influence and control of this foreign corporation and its investors. I am all for full disclosure but this article is wingnuttery at its best.
Nov 22, 2008 - 7:33 am 15. PJ:Of course, these questions will never appear in any newspaper or TV channel.
Nov 22, 2008 - 7:42 am 16. Chris in Toronto:“There are none so blind as they who will not see.”
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:07 am 17. sfcmac:–– Jonathan Swift, 1738, in his ‘Polite Conversation’
@Lee
The advance on his book isn’t exactly coming from an unbiased, non-political source, is it? Bertelsmann ain’t Random House.
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:09 am 18. Gladstone:So the puppet-master is himself a puppet? Who would have guessed!?
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:10 am 19. Gudrun Eussner:For those of you reading German here an article about The Bertelsmann Stiftung and its activities in Islamization of our society. Here you find an article from their site in English: “Muslims in Germany are very religious”. Watch the photo, please, to get an idea, how they are thinking about Muslim women: two joung ladies with headscarfs.
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:22 am 20. BD:Obama should do what Bush did with the proceeds of “A Charge to Keep” while he was in the White House: donate them to charity.
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:27 am 21. Suzanne H:I am curious. How many of Obama’s books sold and did that number justify his advances or the continuing payments of large sums?
Nov 22, 2008 - 8:37 am 22. Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » Obama’s Judgment In Question Once Again:[...] Rosenthal is asking the Obama campaign to fully disclose a obvious conflict of interest: The publicly funded Franco-German “cultural” [...]
Nov 22, 2008 - 10:35 am 23. AFNonline » Blog Archive » Revising “the Logic of Hegemony”:[...] Rosenthal has got a worthy piece of prose up on Pajamas Media that makes the skin crawl. “German Publishing’s Man in the White House” tells of Obama’s ties to Germany’s Bertelsmann Publishing and a massive conflict of [...]
Nov 23, 2008 - 6:30 am 24. Do Not Take Publishing Advice from the Folks at Pajamas Media « Tiny Cat Pants:[...] apparently John Rosenthal just discovered that Obama wrote some books and that SHOCKINGLY he makes money off of them. The Obamas’ most recent 2007 return lists a [...]
Nov 23, 2008 - 7:10 am 25. » German Publishing’s Man in the White House White House On Best Political Blogs: News And Info On White House:[...] German Publishing’s Man in the White House Posted in November 23rd, 2008 by in Uncategorized German Publishing’s Man in the White House [...]
Nov 24, 2008 - 3:23 pm 26. Streaming Headlines : AFNewsblog:[...] Rosenthal has got a worthy piece of prose up on Pajamas Media that makes the skin crawl. “German Publishing’s Man in the White House” tells of Obama’s ties to Germany’s Bertelsmann Publishing and a massive conflict of interest [...]
Nov 25, 2008 - 5:18 pm 27. Pajamas Media » What Bertelsmann Wants from Obama:[...] suggested in my earlier article on Bertelsmann’s “Man in the White House”, the issue of Obama’s financial relationship to Bertelsmann is particularly troubling, since [...]
Dec 15, 2008 - 1:04 am