Double standards for dummies
by digby
So it would seem that the Village is all atwitter this morning over some emails and alleged conflict of interest that Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal had when Clinton was in the state department. I’m sure we’re going to hear tons about this because the underlying story is Benghazi! and the narrative will be that Clinton personally ordered the killing of four Americans in order to reward her friends with big bucks. That how this crapola works.
Someone asked this morning if we wouldn’t have been very upset if we’d heard that some old friend of Dick Cheney’s had been working for the Bush charity and had some financial interest in Iraq and was sending Dick Cheney information that Cheney sent around to his staff and I nearly spit up my coffee I laughed so hard, recalling this story that virtually nobody gave a damn about back in 2003:
Cheney said Sunday on NBC that since becoming vice president, “I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had, now, for over three years.”
Democrats pointed out that Cheney receives deferred compensation from Halliburton under an arrangement he made in 1998, and also retains stock options. He has pledged to give after-tax proceeds of the stock options to charity.
Cheney’s aides defended the assertion on NBC, saying the financial arrangements do not constitute a tie to the company’s business performance. They pointed out that Cheney took out a $15,000 insurance policy so he would collect the deferred payments over five years whether or not Halliburton remains in business.
Lautenberg, D-N.J., asked the Congressional Research Service to weigh in.
Without naming Cheney or Halliburton, the service reported that unexercised stock options and deferred salary “are among those benefits described by the Office of Government Ethics as ‘retained ties’ or ‘linkages’ to one’s former employer.”
Lautenberg said the report makes clear that Cheney does still have financial ties to Halliburton. “I ask the vice president to stop dodging the issue with legalese,” Lautenberg said.
Cathie Martin, Cheney’s spokeswoman, said the question is whether Cheney has any possible conflict of interest with Halliburton, “and the answer to that is, no.”
Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 through August 2000. The company’s KBR subsidiary is the main government contractor working to restore Iraq’s oil industry in an open-ended contract that was awarded without competitive bidding.
At last count Halliburton (KBR) made almost 40 billion dollars on those contracts once Dick got the job done. There was no need for middle men in that administration. The Vice President handled that stuff personally. And hey, it only resulted a few thousand American deaths, tens of thousands of American injuries, trillions in dollars, the total destabilization of the middle east and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. Whatevs.
I realize it’s cheap to point out that there’s a double standard. It’s so obvious it’s embarrassing. But the Village scribes are taking these little tips from the GOP oppo shop and running with them as if they’re Watergate (again…) and it has to be pointed out to the younger generation that they are being used and when all is said and done their reputations will forever be tainted with this crap if they don’t recognise what’s going on. Jeff Gerth and his ilk may still be doing the right wing’s dirty work and getting paid for it but everyone knows what he is. Any journalist who doesn’t want to have an asterisk after his or her name should be very cautious about this stuff unless they are planning a career as one of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch’s second string minions.
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