Barack Obama’s operation announced ethics guidelines which would guide who could fund the operation of his transition team. “The rules will bar political action committees, corporations and lobbyists from donating to the transition fund that Mr. Obama set up. Mr. Obama is expected to raise about $3.5 million to supplement the $8.5 million in taxpayer money he will receive for transition costs. Mr. Podesta said individual donations will be capped at $5,000.” But apparently the proscription against receiving money from lobbyists doesn’t preclude lobbyists from being on the transition team itself. The WSJ reports:
The Obama transition team released the names of 13 people on Wednesday who will direct a top-to-bottom review of federal agencies and another six who will lead teams that will review Treasury, State and Defense department policy, budget and personnel issues. … It includes four former lobbyists, three top campaign fund-raisers and two former employees of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae …
Mr. Obama’s transition advisers include Tom Donilon, a top lobbyist for Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage giant that helped precipitate the current financial crisis. Mr. Donilon will co-lead a team reviewing the State Department.
Co-leading the State Department audit will be Wendy Sherman, a principal of Albright Group, a firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Ms Sherman headed Fannie Mae’s charitable foundation between 1996 and 1997. …
The Treasury review will be led by Josh Gotbaum, a Clinton administration veteran and long-time investment banker at Lazard Freres, and by Michael Warren, the chief operating officer of Stonebridge International LLC, a Washington lobbying and consulting firm.
The transition itself has received input from many sources. WND quotes an Arabic language newspaper as saying the Obama campaign has been in contact with Hamas before and after the elections.
JERUSALEM – Hamas held a meeting in the Gaza Strip several months ago with aides to President-elect Barack Obama, but the terror group was asked to keep the contacts secret until after last week’s elections, according to a senior Hamas official. Ahmed Yousef, Hamas’ chief political adviser in Gaza, told the leading Al-Hayat Arabic-language newspaper Hamas has maintained regular communication with Obama aides that even continued during the past week.
“We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama),” Yousuf told Al-Hayat.
Yousuf said Hamas’s contact with Obama’s advisers was ongoing, adding that relations were maintained after Obama’s electoral victory last Tuesday.
Ethics, man. Ethics.
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9 Comments
1. Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Thursday Highlights:[...] The ethics statements on Mr Obama’s transition team … and Hamas? Ethics? Whatever. [...]
Nov 13, 2008 - 4:12 am 2. Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e40v4:[...] The ethics statements on Mr Obama’s transition team … and Hamas? Ethics? Whatever. [...]
Nov 13, 2008 - 4:12 am 3. CPT, Charles:Tip of the iceberg…I suspect our Dear Leader has already sent feelers out to Iran.
As I had speculated earlier, this probably began when Carter had his ‘closed-door’ meeting with Assad a couple of months back. And I might add, I’ll lay down any wager you want that agents of Tehran were also present at those Hamas meetings.
The indicators…Tehran’s going into ‘turbo’ mode, vis-a-vie, their strategic capabilities. Syria’s re-insertion into Lebanon…their tripwire threat against an Israeli response vs Iran. All of the ducks are being put in a row; if Israel remains passive, it will find itself ‘locked in’.
The results, Israel will find itself out on a limb with our new Dear Leader holding the saw under their noses: submit to a settled peace with the Pali’s and Syria [on their terms...]. Good-bye Golan, E. Jerusalem, the West Bank defensive Wall; hello ‘right of return’.
All in the name of everlasting peace, mind you.
Nov 13, 2008 - 5:32 am 4. CPT, Charles:Oh yes…as to Dear Leader’s pronouncement that Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons being ‘unacceptable’…yeah.
I’m also looking forward my tax cut too…
Nov 13, 2008 - 5:52 am 5. Vinny Vidivici:Change, ho!
Seriously, one thing that will change is the way our various antagonists and adversaries around the world deal with a Carter-esque president. They saw a neutered Carter replaced by a muscular Reagan and two governments toppled in the wake of 9/11.
They understand a weak president will be far more useful to them the longer he and his party’s successors are in office. They will avoid the sort of overt humiliation that doomed Carter. The quid pro quo for refraining from public challenge will be getting much of what they want from a president more suspicious of his own nation than any other.
He will be aided in the rationalization of retreat by trans-national progressives here and abroad who have been committed for decades to diminished U.S. influence and deference to the UN, etc. His global media cheering section will do everything they can to make him look good and the international Left will applaud.
Insecure Americans who worry more about being well-regarded in Europe than whether their nation is doing the right or necessary thing will be reassured by cooing approval on BBC-America. ‘See how much everyone hates you’ will be replaced by ’see how much more pleasant it is when you do what we want’. Hollywood will go back to making movies about likeable American presidents like they did throughout the 90’s.
In short, anyone looking for a Carter-to-Reagan swing of the pendulum may be waiting a long time.
Nov 13, 2008 - 10:41 am 6. mnotaro:Charles: regarding looking forward to your tax cut…don’t hold your breath on that one. Obama and his liberal illuminati have now changed to: people living in poverty and who are unemployed and haven’t worked in 10 years, are just going to be given all the money the rest of us make! Did you miss that article?
Nov 13, 2008 - 10:43 am 7. CPT. Charles:mnotaro: you must be new around here, son…do you think that someone who refers to Pres #44 as…Dear Leader…has a whole lotta faith in him doing the RIGHT thing? Hmmm?
Perhaps my sarcasm was too under-played.
Ah Vinny, don’t bet on that. Sure, they’ll let him play the fool until they’re ready to make their closing move [unless DL actually does agree with their viewpoints, in which case it'll be the Obamabots that'll be the fools...].
While the Wahabi’s do want a ‘useful idiot’ so they can spread their poison unhindered, the Twelvers don’t GIVE A SHIT.
When they think it’s time…when they think they’re ready, they’ll move. At that point, they’ll be going for regional domination first. And I don’t discount the possibility they’ll try to bop us in the same go [think EMP warhead on an ship-board capable IRBM[s]…].
Then, when they have the bulk of the ME hydrocarbons under their nuclear umbrella [and in their hands...], then the real fun will begin. It won’t be a conversation…it will be demands and orders.
It will be…obey, or else.
Nov 13, 2008 - 11:20 am 8. Vinny Vidivici:Charles:
Good points, as always. I was, perhaps, thinking only of the more calculating players — our so-called ‘allies’ in Europe or China.
I believe the end game you described is correct.
A half-baked thought occurred to me, though, that a nuclear umbrella over the oilfields might be the only thing that keeps China out a decade hence. Those tens of millions of ‘bare branches’ — the result of a 120:100 male/female birth ratio — would be coming of age in time to serve as an occupation army, one free to operate without the restraint provided by 24/7 television coverage, a home-grown human rights ‘industry’ or a domestic fifth column.
Nov 13, 2008 - 12:33 pm 9. cfbleachers:I wrote this on October 22nd…the Hamas recognition was on my mind then, and remains on my mind.
In speaking about Biden’s comment about “whoa, you are going to think we are wrong”.
“I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you”
So, where…exactly, does that put us in the equation today. If you have forgotten more than they know, do you…or they…currently possess the most knowledge and insight about foreign policy. Or have you forgotten so much, that it’s impossible to estimate?
“…we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”
Hugh Hewitt on Monday night wrote an article that detailed a conversation with Victor Davis Hanson, in which they discussed what Biden may have meant.
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/6affe916-1db6-4457-8d86-19c0912af286
“Hanson knows what Joe Biden almost bluntly declared and certainly implied: A President Obama will blink when Iran threatens Israel by approaching the nuclear tripwire. A President Obama will seek to force Israel to live with Iran as a nuclear power capable of either striking Israel or shipping to Hezbollah the means of threatening the very existence of the Jewish state, and the supporters of Israel in the U.S. will be stunned and then angry.
Perhaps. Although, one only has to remember back to May 10th when the following item was reported…
“A principal Mideast adviser to US presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama resigned Friday after reports surfaced that he had been in repeated contact with members of Hamas. Rob Malley met with Hamas officials during “research”….”
With a team assembled that includes Brzezinski, Bonior, McPeak, and formerly Samantha Power, Malley and apparently includes Lugar and Jones…the table seems set for a formal recognition of Hamas. And sending a “front man”…albeit with all due plausible deniability…to bring the silverware and stemware and to talk about picking out china patterns, seems not too far-fetched.
If Malley was doing frontwork for what might be “horse traded” in return for official recognition, and if Malley also signaled a willingness to ratchet back the “influence of the Zionists”, as Rev. Jackson so openly discussed in France…then the “appearance that we may not be right”, and the “whoa, I don’t know about that decision” as well as the “we need you to keep ‘the community’ calm”…pieces together nicely.
It also coincides neatly with a decision to stop debating the worried voices in the Jewish “community”. Apparently miffed at a couple of ads that questioned the team assembled and their historic antipathy toward Israel, the Obama campaign packed up their ball and went home. The “fairness” doctrine apparently includes the following rules:
1)If you dissent, we will legislate you out of existence;
2)If you question, we will sic the crooked media on you;
3)If you point at our team, we will call off all debates;
4)If you ask for our records, we will have our universities and libraries slam the door
5)If you appear as a radio guest to discuss us, we will issue a call to action to silence you
6)If you point at our associations, we will slander you as racist
Sounds “fair” to me.
Nov 14, 2008 - 5:58 am