Obama’s VP Search Committee
Yesterday I wrote that a candidate’s first presidential decision was his selection of a running mate. Senator Obama pre-empted the norm by announcing his VP search committee. This group offers some insight into Obama’s world.
The Obama camp’s disclosure about the three-person veep vetting team was an effort to change the subject from the long, divisive primary campaign toward the general election.
Kennedy’s name came as a surprise, although she endorsed Obama at a critical time last winter, saying he could be an inspirational leader like her father. She also campaigned for Obama.
Holder is a former federal prosecutor and District of Columbia Superior Court judge who held the No. 2 job at the Justice Department under President Clinton.
Johnson is widely known among Democrats for having helped previous candidates, including John Kerry four years ago, sift through vice presidential possibilities. He is a former chief executive officer for the mortgage lender Fannie Mae. (FNM)
I don’t agree that Caroline Kennedy is such a surprise. After all she has personally performed many duties that would be expected of a Vice President. She ceremoniously christened the USS John F. Kennedy and represented her family at the funeral services of former Presidents Ronald Reagan in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007 and at the funeral service of former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in 2007.
She is also there to make sure that the “Pissed off woman voter” issue isn’t ignored.
Jim Johnson gives a clearer view of what Obama means when he says “change”. He apparently means status quo. Johnson was the brilliant guy who vetted John Kerry’s VP picks and settled on the silky pony. He was also an aide to VP Walter Mondale during the Carter catastrophe. Change means a far left, democrat party insider for over 30 years.
Eric Holder is my favorite on this list, and this guy is all about “change”. Holder was the guy that orchestrated the final scandal of the Clinton administration; pardon-gate. This was a rush of last minute pardons and commutations that Holder by-passed the Justice Department’s procedures to secure.
The list included 16 members of the terror organization FALN. The Senate condemned the action in a floor vote of 95-2.
On Clinton’s last day in office, Holder secured 140 pardons that included drug dealers, thieves, tax cheats and even two members of the terror group Weather Underground (Linda Sue Evans and Susan Rosenberg).
The most famous was Mark Rich. So famous that it led to a congressional investigation.
Prosecutors on the Rich case testified that no one consulted with them before a recommendation went to the president on the Rich pardon.
Rich has been based in Switzerland since 1983, just before he was indicted in the United States, accused of tax evasion on more than $100 million in income, fraud and participating in illegal oil deals with Iran.
Members of Congress pointed out that Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, visited the White House more than a dozen times during Clinton’s presidency and contributed an estimated $450,000 to the president’s library foundation, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party and at least $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Senate.
“Everything about it seems sleazy,” Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said at the time.
Rep. Henry Waxman, then senior Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and now its chairman, called the Rich pardon an end run around the judicial process.
This doesn’t appear to be great judgment to me but at least Tony Rezko can expect a very truncated trip to prison.
Category: Politics
