Obama and (Labor) Voter Intimidation

Tigerhawk has an excellent post up about Obama's support for the Card Check bill backed by labor, which Obama supports and McCain does not. Here's why it's troubling:

Barack Obama supports Big Labor's ambition to intimidate American workers into joining unions that they would not join if they were permitted to vote in secret. This is the central idea of "card check," a program that would eliminate the need to have an election -- and the debate that precedes it -- before unionizing an American workplace. Big Labor is trying to accomplish through legislation what it cannot in the marketplace of ideas (in 2007, only 7.5 percent of private sector employees belonged to labor unions). "Card check" is such a naked power grab that even USA Today could not help but editorialize against it

Now, just imagine if corporate management was trying a similar thing in reverse, in other words, so long as 50% of employees signed a card in public indicating that was their intention, then management could de-certify a union. Pro-union Democrats such as myself would be howling, and properly so.

It is no different here -- unions in their desperation are willing to toss aside the critically necessary step of voting in secret AFTER a union has gathered enough signed cards (30% of the workers in a given company) to authorize having the vote in the first place. They are seeking to replace freedom of individual votes with a situation rife with possibilities for fraud and intimidation.

Add his support for this bill to his prior support for removing the Teamsters' federal oversight and a picture of Obama supporting the worst elements of unions more clearly emerges.

ADDED: To his great credit, Obama supporter and former 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate George McGovern parts company with Obama on this one:



That pretty much says it all.

Obama's friend Alexi, the Mob Banker

Of course, the national media has taken great interest in this story, too. Just as soon as they're done thoroughly vetting Joe the Plumber, they'll get right on it!

So, young Alexi Giannoulias, all of 29 years old, got elected Illinois State Treasurer in 2006 with a critical endorsement by Senator Barack Obama, who has reportedly called Giannoulias his protege.

His qualifications? Playing basketball with Obama, and for a time in Greece in a semi-pro league, and of course, making sure his family-owned Broadway Bank keeps local Mob figures well-supplied with easy money:

Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael "Jaws" Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution.

Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links that several top Illinois Dems, including the state's speaker of the House and party chairman, refused to endorse him even after he won the Democratic nomination with Obama's help.

Giannoulias was the bank's vice president and chief loan officer for most of the more than $15 million in loans.

And let no one think that this means Obama's rep as a reformer is an absolute crock, oh no!

"Barack Obama has a long record of fighting for ethics reform from his days as a state senator," a campaign rep said.

Because putting a mob banker like Giannoulias in charge of all the finances of the State of Illinois is the reformist thing to do, you see?

With a record of staunch Daley Machine reform like this, it can only come as a shock that Illinois seems to be missing $45.8 billion in pension funds. Thank goodness Senator Obama has helped put Alexi and his well-connected Mob friends on the case! I'm sure it will all be cleaned up in a jiffy.

To get serious for a moment, this is not about party or ideology. This is about corruption. Obama and his Daley Machine pals in Chicago are corrupt to the core, as were Republicans Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay, among others. We just got rid of that last bunch of corrupt hacks, let's not give another gang a crack at it, mmkay?

McCain at least learned his lesson from being one of the Keating Five and thereafter took on his party's corrupt hacks, as did Palin in Alaska, both at considerable risk to their careers.

More on the Chicago Machine

According to David Freddoso in the Wall Street Journal, it seems that Senator Obama had a chance to back a bipartisan reform effort in Cook County in Illinois, and chose instead to vote for a Chicago political machine hack who was well known as corrupt:

In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago's Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

The since-deceased Stroger's self-serving mismanagement of county government is still the subject of federal investigations and arbitration claims. Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers.

When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County's government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

After the primary, when Stroger's son Todd replaced him on the ballot under controversial circumstances, a good-government Republican named Tony Peraica attracted the same kind of bipartisan support from reformers in the November election. But Mr. Obama endorsed the young heir to the machine, calling him -- to the absolute horror of Chicago liberals -- a "good, progressive Democrat."

Mayor Richard M. Daley -- who would receive Mr. Obama's endorsement in 2007 shortly after several of his top aides and appointees had received prison sentences for their corrupt operation of Chicago's city government -- was invested in the Stroger machine's survival. So was every alderman and county commissioner who uses the county payroll to support political hangers-on. So was Mr. Obama's friend and donor, Tony Rezko, who is now in federal prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted in June of 16 felony corruption charges. Rezko had served as John Stroger's finance chairman and raised $150,000 for him (Stroger put Rezko's wife on the county payroll).

Once again, we see the central role of Obama's money man Tony Rezko, who is one of the bagmen for the Chicago Machine.

Don't just take the Wall Street Journal's word for it though. Far closer to home, the Chicago Tribune had this to say about Obama's endorsement of Todd Stroger back in 2006:

...Obama has come too far as an inspiring new breed of politician on the national scene to muck around in local politics, endorsing machine hack candidates and substituting party for principle. Or so you'd imagine.

There were warning signs: Obama's first dubious endorsement of a lightweight came during the primary season when he cut TV ads plumping for Alexi Giannoulias, then 29, the vice president of his family's bank who decided he'd like to be state treasurer. The endorsement was widely seen as key to Giannoulias' primary victory.

Obama was upfront about why he got involved: Members of the Giannoulias family were early and strong backers of his U.S. Senate campaign and "I think it's important to reciprocate," he told a reporter.

But Obama did not reciprocate for Forrest Claypool.

Claypool was the overwhelming favorite of reform-minded Democrats in his race against incumbent John Stroger (Todd's father) and had headed Obama's transition team after Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004.

Old-guard candidate John Stroger, meanwhile, had endorsed Comptroller Dan Hynes instead of Obama in the Democratic Senate primary.

When Obama decided not to endorse either candidate, his spokesman intoned, "The senator believes that the voters should make up their own minds in this race."

As you know, then, John Stroger suffered a stroke, won the primary and retired for health reasons. The Democratic Central Committee thumbed its nose at critics and selected Todd Stroger to take his place on the ballot, rejecting more senior, qualified candidates such as U.S. Rep. Danny Davis of Chicago and veteran county Commissioner Bobbie Steele.

The stench of same-old-same-old from John Stroger's years of cronyism and bloat hung over the process, and Obama had every excuse to distance himself from it.

Instead came this letter--a body blow to Claypool Democrats and the idealists whose fantasy about Obama is that he will transcend the grubby machinations and tawdry favor-swapping of party politics--followed by word from Obama's office that he will appear on stage at a pro-Stroger rally Monday night.

So, let's count the largely unchallenged statements Obama repeatedly makes about himself that this story simply destroys, shall we?

1. Obama represents a new politics. Reality: No, actually, he represents the oldest politics around, the big-city political machine. When given the opportunity to choose his reformist ally, Forrest Claypool, over a dirty Machine politician who previously endorsed Obama's rival, he undermined the reformer by failing to endorse either candidate. When John Stroger retired, Obama further chose to endorse Stroger's son Todd over more experienced and reform-oriented alternatives.

2. Obama represents a new bipartisan spirit, rising above petty divisions. Reality: At the last, given a chance to support a reformist Republican over Todd Stroger, Obama again chose Todd Stroger. Three strikes, you're out.

This is just his record in Chicago, but it exemplifies how Obama's rhetoric is completely disconnected from the actual reality of how he does things. And it is the poor of Chicago who suffer most from this corrupt brand of politics. "Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers."

Do you think the rich of Chicago were hurt by Stroger's neglect of basic services, or the poor?

Obama and the Teamsters

I missed this back in May when it occurred, but according to CBS News and the New Republic Senator Obama struck a deal to end the federal Independent Review Board created in 1989 to curb Teamsters' corruption:

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that last summer, Illinois Senator Barack Obama told officials in the Teamsters union that he favored ending the Independent Review Board (IRB) that was created in 1989 by the federal government to rid the union of organized crime. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama, confirmed the story, saying that the candidate believed that the IRB had "run its course" because "organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined." The Teamsters subsequently endorsed Obama for president, in late February.

Obama and the Teamsters bristled at suggestions that any deal was made. The Obama campaign also circulated a tape of a speech that Senator Hillary Clinton made last March to the Teamsters saying "at some point the past has to be opened," but Clinton's statement, like those made by Senator John Kerry in 2004, stopped well short of committing her to end oversight of the Teamsters. Based on the statements the newspaper quoted, it is fair to assume that The Wall Street Journal got the details right.

There are two reasons to be concerned about Obama's actions here. The first is procedural. Obama's promise to close down the IRB suggests a Bush-like contempt for the customary relationship between government and the judicial process. The president himself can't shut down the IRB. He can only recommend to his attorney general that he recommend to the U.S. Attorney in New York that it be shut down. But in these kind of touchy matters, presidents usually defer to the judgment of their attorney generals. By coming close to promising a shutdown, Obama was putting politics above judicial procedure - which is just the kind of "Washington" behavior that he likes to criticize his opponents for doing.

The second reason for concern is more substantive. Labor leaders have made plausible arguments for shutting down the IRB, but a Chicago politician should be extremely wary of acceding to them. If there is continuing mob influence in the Teamsters, it is probably centered in the Chicago area. And in the last decade, the Teamsters in Chicago have shown little enthusiasm for rooting out corruption in their ranks. As a veteran Chicago politician surrounded by a veteran Chicago campaign staff, Obama had to have known this - and that makes his warm words to the Teamsters all the more disturbing.

Once again, Obama goes where other Democratic politicians dare not go in explicitly committing himself to ending corruption oversight in exchange for union support. This is Chicago politics, but it's not remotely reformist politics.

ACORN and its alleged voter registration fraud

Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic writes an excellently fair-minded post about GOP complaints about the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN):

ACORN works in urban areas and among the poor, so their advocacy benefits the Democratic Party.

And most acutely, Republicans point to charges, many validated, of ACORN's turning in hundreds, if not thousands, of fraudulent registrations in at least a dozen states and employing felons in states where it's illegal to do so for voter registration purposes.

Defenders of ACORN insist they're non-partisan, say that the group simply wants to make sure that as many eligible voters as possible vote and contend that critics are motivated by their partisanship, and possibly by their antipathy toward poor people and black people. Note: ACORN has liberal critics too, including some who think the group's aggressive tactics and history of quasi-socialism make other community organizers look bad.

I've been having growing concerns about this myself, since there have been all too many convictions of various ACORN canvassers for allegedly making fraudulent voter registrations by the thousands. The fact that there has been more than one such episode is troubling.

I'm all for maximum registration and participation of every American voter, especially the poor who are the most vulnerable and too often disenfranchised. It does no one any good, especially the Democratic party, when that noble goal becomes tainted by voter fraud.

I would love to see this cease being a political football between the two parties, and become something both parties devote time to fixing in a clean, verifiable way. But alas I am probably dreaming.

Franklin Raines, Fannie/Freddie, and the Democrats

From Hot Air: Franklin Raines, former Clinton Budget Director, became CEO of Fannie Mae and was under some heavy grilling in 2004 by Republicans concerned that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not observing basic accounting rules, including those established by Sarbanes/Oxley in the aftermath of Enron's collapse.

Just watch and form your own conclusions, but my take is that this video could not be more devastating, even if we didn't have the heavy-handed text super-imposed on the video.



This is Through-the-Looking-Glass territory, with Republicans insisting on the need for reform and greater regulation, and the Democrats arguing everything is fine, and leave the markets alone. The problem is, the markets were not operating normally, they had been distorted by political pressure to offer lending to high-risk home loan recipients, something that Fannie and Freddie were then buying up, spreading the toxic debt of these future foreclosures throughout the entire financial system.

So Fannie and Freddie have now collapsed, precipitating the chain of events leading to the $700 billion bailout that the Congress is voting on today.

But don't worry about Mr. Raines! He came out just fine with a multi-million dollar pay package, according to his Wikipedia entry:

On December 21, 2004 Raines accepted what he called "early retirement" [4] from his position as CEO while U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigators continued to investigate alleged accounting irregularities. He is accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses [5].

In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $50 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings [6] initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as 6.3 billion.[7].

Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives by the OFHEO in which the OFHEO sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused.[8] On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie's former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie's former controller. The three executives agreed to pay fines totaling about $3 million, which will be paid by Fannie's insurance policies. [ed. emphasis added] Raines also agreed to donate the proceeds from the sale of $1.8 million of his Fannie stock and to give up stock options. The stock options however have no value. Raines also gave up an estimated $5.3 million of "other benefits" said to be related to his pension and forgone bonuses.[9]

An editorial in The Wall Street Journal called it a "paltry settlement" which allowed Raines and the other two executives to "keep the bulk of their riches." [10] In 2003 alone, Raines's compensation was over $20 million.[11]

On July 16 of this year Ben Smith at Politico pointed out that Barack Obama has been calling Franklin Raines for advice on mortgage policy.

See also my earlier post on Senator Obama being the #2 recipient of all Fannie/Freddie political contributions over the last 20 years, just behind #1 recipient Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn), now chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Update: For a highly opinionated take on things, Stanley Kurtz of the National Review writes in the NY Post that Obama's early community organizing affiliations with ACORN helped in the critical loosening of lending standards that has led to this mess:

... community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.

The seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Community Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.

CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.

Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.

In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions.

Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.

This, unfortunately, is precisely what is meant by the proverb "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Slick Willie's got nothing on Obama!

Once again, Obama talks the talk of being a reformer, but only McCain actually walks the walk.

Hot Air reports that John McCain co-sponsored legislation in 2005 designed to reform the GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are at the heart of the current financial crisis:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

Obama, newly sworn in as the junior Senator from Illinois at the time, did not join as a co-sponsor with McCain nor has he sponsored or co-sponsored any such legislation since.

What's more, after Democrat Chris Dodd from Connecticut killed McCain's bill in the Banking Committee, Obama went on to become the #2 recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac campaign contributions! He did this in less than four years in the Senate, leapfrogging even John Kerry who has been in the Senate since 1984. That's quite an accomplishment indeed, but it's not one of reform.

The breakdown of contributions is found here at Open Secrets, the non-partisan campaign finance website. The aforementioned Senator Dodd (a Senator since 1980) is #1 in receiving a total of $165,400 in combined PAC and individual contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributors from 1989 through 2008. Obama, despite not even being on the Senate Banking Committee, has vaulted to the #2 position receiving $126,349 in contributions since 2005, eclipsing Senator John Kerry (in the Senate since 1984) who has received a total of $111,000 since 1989.

And McCain, who has been in the Senate since 1986 -- what is his record? Well, since 1989 McCain has received a whopping $21,550 in contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's worth noting that all those contributions are individual contributions, not PAC donations. McCain, like Obama, has not been on the Senate Banking Committee, and yet he managed to co-sponsor reform legislation where Obama has not. Unsuccessfully, to be sure, but still he at least gave it an effort!

The difference in contributions from these doomed giants becomes all the more stark if you break it down into a yearly average. Rounding up to 4 years, Obama's average yearly received total from Fannie/Freddie amounts to $31,587.25 for each and every year he's been in the Senate. By contrast, McCain's 20-year average from 1989-2008 works out to $1,077.50 per year. If Obama had been in the Senate as long as McCain or Kerry or Dodd has, his total take from Fannie/Freddie would be in the realm of $631,745, or nearly four times the take of current champ Dodd.

There are many, many things Obama is. A brillian law student, yes. A passable community activist who gave up when things got difficult, that too. An ambitious climber of a State Senator, yep. A Senator who ran for President before even a third of his first term was up? Sure! A reformer, though? Please don't insult my intelligence.

This infuriates me so because I am a Democrat, and in my still beating Democratic heart I want to believe that Democrats are on the side of the little guy, while Republicans are the corrupt hacks on the take.

But no, there are corrupt hacks in both parties, and there are true reformers to be found in both parties too. You have to look beyond party labels, and judge them on the content of their character, as illustrated time and again through their record.

The qualms of my Democratic heart are relieved, then, because once again I find that McCain is the reformer, while Obama proves himself to be nothing more than the latest version of the corrupt Chicago machine politician.

Neither man is perfect, and it's ridiculous to expect perfection. But the difference between McCain and Obama on this and other reform issues is so clear as to be laughable. Slick Willie has nothing on Obama, nothing.

UPDATE: As if to put an exclamation point on all of the above, Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Tribune writes on Obama Sidestepping Reform in Illinois.

An Excellent Overview on Palin

The Corner points to an excellent overview of Sarah Palin's career in Alaska, placing in context how the various aspects of her life led her to this point, and what she has accomplished already.

Wasilla's population of 9,000 would be a small town in Britain, and even in most American states.

But Wasilla is the fifth-largest city in Alaska, which meant that Palin was an important player in state politics.

Her husband's status in the Yup'ik Eskimo tribe, of which he is a full, or "enrolled" member, connected her to another influential faction: the large and wealthy (because of their right to oil revenues) native tribes.

All of this gave her a base from which to launch her 2002 campaign for lieutenant (deputy) governor of Alaska.

She lost that, but collected a powerful enough following to be placated with a seat on, and subsequently the chairmanship of, the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which launched her into the politics of Alaska's energy industry.

Palin quickly realised that Alaska had the potential to become a much bigger player in global energy politics, a conviction that grew as the price of oil rose. Alaska had been in hock to oil companies since major production began in the mid-1970s.

As with most poor, distant places that suddenly receive great natural-resource wealth, the first generation of politicians were mesmerised by the magnificence of the crumbs falling from the table. Palin was the first of the next generation to realise that Alaska should have a place at that table.

Her first target was an absurd bureaucratic tangle that for 30 years had kept the state from exporting its gas to the other 48 states. She set an agenda that centred on three mutually supportive objectives: cleaning up state politics, building a new gas pipeline, and increasing the state's share of energy revenues.

This agenda, pursued throughout Palin's commission tenure, culminated in her run for governor in 2006. By this time, she had already begun rooting out corruption and making enemies, but also establishing her bona fides as a reformer.

With this base, she surprised many by steamrollering first the Republican incumbent governor, and second, the Democratic former governor, in the election.

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.

The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska's energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes - the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having "no international experience" particularly absurd.

Read the whole thing, of course.

This puts a whole new perspective on things. It deepens her reform agenda, and McCain's, because it shows that Palin has really led nothing less than a revolution in the way things are done in Alaska. And an overwhelmingly successful and popular one, at that.

Palin helps McCain again in precisely inverting one of the common slams on the Bush Administration -- that they were the servants of Big Oil, through and through. Well, in Alaska, Palin made certain that Big Oil served the people of Alaska.

A similar thing has occurred, interestingly enough, in Iraq. Prior to our invasion, oil served to benefit only a small elite around Saddam. Now the oil wealth is widely dispersed, being given not only to Saddam's Sunni Arab base, but also to the Shi'ites and Kurds who actually live above Iraq's largest oil fields. But I digress.

McCain would do well to take his cues from this article and better articulate just how revolutionary Palin has been in Alaska, and that he and his running mate intend to do the very same in leading the United States, not merely with oil but in making sure all energy sources -- nuclear, solar, wind and geothermal -- are rapidly and efficiently put into service to the American people.

I think that would be yet another devastating blow to an Obama campaign which has no practical experience in these matters, and whose policy prescriptions, while admirable, are almost entirely in the realm of government subsidies and government-funded research.

Reform, or the Lack Thereof

Well, everyone else is no doubt talking about the McCain speech last night, but I wanted to point out something that was discussed in it: the notion of reform, specifically combating political corruption everywhere, starting with one's own party.

McCain has been pissing off his fellow Republicans with his calls for Campaign Finance reform ever since the immediate aftermath of his defeat by George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Actually, here's something I had simply forgotten with the passage of time, McCain had been working with Democrat Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform since 1995! They finally got it passed in 2002, to the disgust of many Republicans and great damage done to McCain's presidential prospects.

Since entering the Senate, Obama's main claim to fame on reform has been the 2007 Ethics Reform, which Feingold initiated with Obama and McCain co-sponsored but did not initiate. PolitiFact.com from Florida's St. Petersburg's Times examines Obama's claims in his latest ads about his central role in this reform and only finds them to be half-true.

Further, yesterday saw dual convictions in separate Democratic and Republican corruption trials. First, uber-corrupt Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years for his various violations of federal law.

Second, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a Democrat, pleaded guilty to two felony charges of lying to a jury, and pleaded no contest to assault on a police officer.

The difference, here, is that McCain was an avowed enemy of Jack Abramoff and his congressional allies, Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, among many others. As seen below, DeLay hates McCain with a mad passion:

By contrast, here's Obama two years ago on Kilpatrick:

The final piece of the puzzle, to me, is that both McCain and Obama pledged to use public financing in the Presidential campaign if they made it this far, and only McCain kept that pledge.

In the end,we have a true contrast here: McCain is a political reformer even when it makes him a pariah in his own party. Obama, by contrast, acts as a reformer only up until the point it threatens his own advancement, or that of his fellow Democrats. At that point, he bails.

That's my take. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Obama's advisor is defense counsel for Panamanian official indicted on charges of murdering an American soldier

I can't believe I missed this! In the course of researching my next post on McCain's and Obama's contrasting positions on free trade, I came across this from ABC's Jake Tapper:

Greg Craig, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, is a partner at the big-shot DC law firm Williams & Connolly. There Craig represents Pedro Miguel González.

González is president of the Panamanian Legislature and is also under indictment in the U.S. for murdering U.S. Army Sgt. Zak Hernández in 1992.

Several paragraphs later, there's this from Obama:

"Until that situation is resolved, we cannot support any trade agreement with Panama," Obama wrote.

Craig also represents Carlos Sánchez-Berzaín, the Bolivian Defense Minister who has been accused in a federal lawsuit of "crimes against humanity" because of his alleged role in the suppression of labor union riots in 2003 that resulted in the deaths of 67 people.

This would be hilarious, if it were not so serious. In essence, Obama is saying that his advisor gets a pass, and Panama takes the fall, because of this case.

It's just another case of Obama protecting his personal cronies while giving the cold shoulder to this country's vulnerable allies, from Iraq to Colombia to Georgia to Panama.