Obama pledges support for Chris Dodd’s re-election

Last Friday Obama pledged to support Chris Dodd in his re-election efforts saying “I can’t say it any clearer: I will be helping Chris Dodd because he deserves the help,”

Remember Chris Dodd is one of many who pushed policies that influenced the banking troubles we are having now.  He simply ignored his responsibilities in order to blindly follow a flawed policy.  He was also involved in the Countrywide Loan scandal.  And to top it all off, he was involved in writing the stimulus provision that allowed AIG to pay out those bonuses.  So why in the world would Obama endorse this man.  Do we really have to ask.  If you have followed Obama’s history you would know that qualifications and ethics have nothing to do with these decisions.  Lets start back in Illinois.

As a state legislator Obama endorsed 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias for state treasurer saying “He’s one of the most outstanding young men that I could ever hope to meet”. In reality his family was a big contributor to his campaign.  This is easy to see when you realize that Giannoulias had little experience in the banking industry and was under scrutiny at the time for campaign contributions taken from criminals as well as loaning money to known criminal elements through their family bank.

Staying in Chicago, Obama endorsed Todd Stroger for President of the Cook County Board.  Obama wrote in a letter, “Today we write to urge your attention to one race in particular. Our friend, Todd Stroger, former state representative and alderman is candidate for president of the Cook County Board. Please consider voting for Todd. … Todd is a good progressive Democrat, who will bring those values and sensibilities to the job.” In actuality Stroger was a well known member of the corrupt Chicago political machine and crony of Daley, the mayor.  His political practices are exactly what Obama said he was going to change in Washington.

Everyone knows about Governor Rod Blagojevich.  Obama worked on his campaign staff and in 2006 endorsed him for re-election saying “If the governor asks me to work on his behalf, I’ll be happy to do it.” He was indicted in 2008.  He was under investigation for 3 years.  You can do the math.

Moving to Detroit, Obama had great things to say about their mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick. “I want to, first of all, acknowledge your great mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick. Who has been on the front lines doing an outstanding job of gathering together the leadership at every level in Detroit to bring about the kind of renaissance that all of us anticipate for this great city. He is a leader, not just here in Detroit, not just in Michigan, but all across the country people look to him. We know that he is going to be doing astounding things for many years to come. I’m grateful to call him a friend and a colleague and I’m looking forward to a lengthy collaboration in terms of making sure that Detroit does well in the future.”

A year later Kilpatrick was indicted on 8 felony charges and Obama was noticeably silent.

Here recently Obama has continued the pattern nominating Gov Bill Richardson despite the fact he was under investigation for pay to play politics and then again he defended Tom Daschle up until the day he removed his name from consideration because of $133,000 of unpaid taxes.

It is pretty clear that Obama chooses his friends by political affiliation and does not really consider ethics in politics to be that important.  You can give all the well orated speeches you want, but you have to walk the walk for me to believe you.  That is why Obama endorsing Dodd really does not surprise me.

Tagged as: dodd, Obama