Question: How can you tell when a Democrat scandal is getting really, really, really bad?
Answer: When the New York Times realizes that it must start reporting on it if it is to salvage its own credibility. and when the principals involved suffer amnesia.
Both occurred in the last ten days.
First, President Obama’s former chief of staff and current mayor of Chicago responded to a question about Solyndra by declaring that he had no memory of Solyndra. Obama’s top political advisor suffered a similar lapse of memory.
“I don’t actually remember that or know about it. So, what I’m dealing with is what I’m dealing with here today,” Rahm Emanuel said.
Why should he? The solar panel giant was only made the centerpiece of the magnificent new green economy that Obama promised would create gazillions of jobs to replace those he was squeezing out of existence elsewhere in the economy.
Similarly, during an interview broadcast on Chicago radio station WLN, Obama’s top political advisor David Axelrod claimed that, “I don’t know anybody associated with Solyndra and I know nothing about the project.”
Why should he? Obama only made a special, highly scripted, tightly choreographed and extravagantly produced appearance at Solyndra headquarters in California where he pronounced that, “It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”
Considering that creating political optics was David Axelrod’s primary job, it seems unlikely that he had nothing to do with the Solyndra mess.
The scandal has gotten so smelly that left wing comedian Jon Stewart has started weaving Solyndra jokes into his Daily Show commentary. That’s probably what tipped off the Times that they needed to start playing catch up, and fast.
There was once a time when the new media followed the New York Times’ lead. Today, the New York Times follows late night comedians.
This was all predictable. An economic analysis of Spain’s green economic policies found that, for every green job created, 2.2 real jobs were destroyed. But Obama held Spain up as a green economy superstar. Great Britain destroyed 3.7 real jobs for every green job created. But even those Eurosclerotic basket cases are outpacing Obama’s green economy which is destroying jobs at a feverish pace, but whose centerpiece has created no jobs.
And even the New York Times has noticed irregularities in the process that handed Solyndra more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer money. The Times reported that the Energy Department’s process for granting the loan was, in the words of a General Accounting Office auditor, “alarming.”
The Energy Department rushed the money to Solyndra without legally mandated evaluations. “They can’t really evaluate the risks without following the rules,” said Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office.
According to the Times, “The Energy Department’s senior staff has acknowledged in interviews the intense pressure from top Obama administration officials to rush stimulus spending out the door.”
So why didn’t they follow the rules? Might it be that Solyndra executives and investors poured great gobs of treasure into Barack Obama’s presidential campaign coffers? It would fit. Much of the rest of Obama’s $837 billion dollar “economic stimulus” program ended up in the pockets of those who sent a significant portion of it back into Democratic Party coffers.
If Barack Obama were a Republican, that would be the media narrative already.
It’s not surprising that Barack Obama thinks that “millionaires, billionaires and corporate jet owners” should be giving back more. The ones that he’s accustomed to doing business with got their millions and billions by milking the taxpayers in the first place.
Prime among those billionaires was George Kaiser, a top Obama bundler in 2008. Since Obama was elected, Kaiser has made multiple visits to the White House, although he insists that at none of his visits did the topic of Solyndra come up.
Of course not. And shame on anyone who would even suspect such a thing. But even if he’s telling the truth, what is known is that Solyndra spent at least $1.8 million dollars on lobbyists. And the Energy Department improperly kept those lobbyist visits off the record.
Enron was a big scandal for the Bush administration, although I still don’t know Bush’s connection to it, other than that he and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay were friends. But that friendship didn’t translate into money for Enron. When Ken Lay begged Bush for a bailout, he was turned away.
Answer: When the New York Times realizes that it must start reporting on it if it is to salvage its own credibility. and when the principals involved suffer amnesia.
Both occurred in the last ten days.
First, President Obama’s former chief of staff and current mayor of Chicago responded to a question about Solyndra by declaring that he had no memory of Solyndra. Obama’s top political advisor suffered a similar lapse of memory.
“I don’t actually remember that or know about it. So, what I’m dealing with is what I’m dealing with here today,” Rahm Emanuel said.
Why should he? The solar panel giant was only made the centerpiece of the magnificent new green economy that Obama promised would create gazillions of jobs to replace those he was squeezing out of existence elsewhere in the economy.
Similarly, during an interview broadcast on Chicago radio station WLN, Obama’s top political advisor David Axelrod claimed that, “I don’t know anybody associated with Solyndra and I know nothing about the project.”
Why should he? Obama only made a special, highly scripted, tightly choreographed and extravagantly produced appearance at Solyndra headquarters in California where he pronounced that, “It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.”
Considering that creating political optics was David Axelrod’s primary job, it seems unlikely that he had nothing to do with the Solyndra mess.
The scandal has gotten so smelly that left wing comedian Jon Stewart has started weaving Solyndra jokes into his Daily Show commentary. That’s probably what tipped off the Times that they needed to start playing catch up, and fast.
There was once a time when the new media followed the New York Times’ lead. Today, the New York Times follows late night comedians.
This was all predictable. An economic analysis of Spain’s green economic policies found that, for every green job created, 2.2 real jobs were destroyed. But Obama held Spain up as a green economy superstar. Great Britain destroyed 3.7 real jobs for every green job created. But even those Eurosclerotic basket cases are outpacing Obama’s green economy which is destroying jobs at a feverish pace, but whose centerpiece has created no jobs.
And even the New York Times has noticed irregularities in the process that handed Solyndra more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer money. The Times reported that the Energy Department’s process for granting the loan was, in the words of a General Accounting Office auditor, “alarming.”
The Energy Department rushed the money to Solyndra without legally mandated evaluations. “They can’t really evaluate the risks without following the rules,” said Frank Rusco, a program director at the Government Accountability Office.
According to the Times, “The Energy Department’s senior staff has acknowledged in interviews the intense pressure from top Obama administration officials to rush stimulus spending out the door.”
So why didn’t they follow the rules? Might it be that Solyndra executives and investors poured great gobs of treasure into Barack Obama’s presidential campaign coffers? It would fit. Much of the rest of Obama’s $837 billion dollar “economic stimulus” program ended up in the pockets of those who sent a significant portion of it back into Democratic Party coffers.
If Barack Obama were a Republican, that would be the media narrative already.
It’s not surprising that Barack Obama thinks that “millionaires, billionaires and corporate jet owners” should be giving back more. The ones that he’s accustomed to doing business with got their millions and billions by milking the taxpayers in the first place.
Prime among those billionaires was George Kaiser, a top Obama bundler in 2008. Since Obama was elected, Kaiser has made multiple visits to the White House, although he insists that at none of his visits did the topic of Solyndra come up.
Of course not. And shame on anyone who would even suspect such a thing. But even if he’s telling the truth, what is known is that Solyndra spent at least $1.8 million dollars on lobbyists. And the Energy Department improperly kept those lobbyist visits off the record.
Enron was a big scandal for the Bush administration, although I still don’t know Bush’s connection to it, other than that he and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay were friends. But that friendship didn’t translate into money for Enron. When Ken Lay begged Bush for a bailout, he was turned away.
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