I think not. I'm gonna bump the thread here, Norman, and ping a few truth-lovers to get their opinion.
I was reading an interview that ABC did with John McCain wherein he couldn't seem to answer a question without mentioning his good friend Jack Kemp, who he has also mentioned in several debates and public appearances. In this interview, McCain says he will unite the Party with the likes of Rudy Giuliani, and Governor Schwarzenegger, Jack Kemp. He says "Jack Kemp is one of the most respected members of our party." He says he will use Jack Kemp to reach out to the Hispanic and African-American community (this man will help?). Without meaning to be sarcastic, it seems to me that John McCain thinks Jack Kemp will be his miracle worker in this campaign. Does he also intend on giving Jack Kemp a prominent role in a McCain administration?
I remember Jack Kemp from his HUD days -- a guy who brought us a taste of that Fabian socialism through "enterprise zones." But that's a whole 'nuther subject. Since McCain is using Kemp in such a prominent role in his campaign and can't seem to stop mentioning the guy, I thought I'd look at what Jack Kemp has been up this decade. Well, I didn't have to go very far! Hugo Chavez, Oil-for-Food... read on! And when he got in trouble, who did Kemp choose for a lawyer? Clinton attorney Lanny Davis!
Hugo Chavez vs. the Media
The Venezuelan strongman tries to crackdown on his country's journalists while Jack Kemp shills for him in America.
The Weekly Standard, 06/09/2003
(snip)And to further control the media, Chavez has imposed exchange controls. No Venezuelan citizen may purchase foreign currency without government permission--an act that renders the local currency worthless for import transactions. As a result, any television company that needs to purchase electronic equipment or any newspaper editor wishing to order newsprint paper or buy ink must petition the currency control agency that is, conveniently, headed by a man who assisted Lt. Col. Chavez in his failed 1992 coup attempt.
TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, some American elites are actively shilling for the Chavez regime even as the media crackdown proceeds. Jack Kemp, notably, has been busy opening doors for the Chavez government. Recently Kemp and the Venezuelan ambassador visited the Wall Street Journal's editorial board in an unsuccessful attempt to charm the paper away from its anti-Chavez stance. Since that visit, the Journal reported that Kemp has been trying to broker a complicated deal to fill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve with Venezuelan oil via an intermediary company--Free Market Petroleum LLC--on whose board Kemp sits. Since hooking up with Free Market Petroleum, Kemp has visited with Chavez and his ministers in Caracas. Surely he must have noticed Chavez's brutality here.
Kemp Wobbles; Coulter Scores; Smoking-Gun Documents in Iraq (NYTs reporter honored in Havana museum)
Insight Magazine, 7/21/03
Already hit hard when its codirector William J. Bennett was exposed as a compulsive gambler after earning (and losing) millions from his Book of Virtues, Empower America's other codirector, free marketeer Jack Kemp, now has been revealed by the Washington Times as beneficiary of a billion-dollar deal with the state-owned Venezuelan oil company.Why Kemp? The deal was done to bolster Venezuela's Castroite president, Hugo Chavez, in the middle of a strike by anticommunist oil workers seeking to bring down the Marxist regime.
Kemp's oil deal ; Marketing work in Venezuela draws criticism
The Washington Times, July 15, 2003, pg. A.13
Neoconservative leader Jack Kemp has joined a company that plans to purchase oil from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government and sell it to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.The retired pro football star, congressman and 1996 Republican vice-presidential candidate is working with Free Market Petroleum LLC, which signed a contract with Venezuela's Ministry of Energy and Mines in January to purchase 50,000 barrels of petroleum per day for three years.
No oil has yet been shipped, but the deal, potentially worth more than $1 billion, is generating criticism in Venezuela because of several features that vary sharply from the country's past oil- marketing practices.
(snip)
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Mr. Kemp had developed a friendship with the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, former oil executive Bernardo Alvarez, and had accompanied him on public-relations missions, including an editorial board meeting at the Journal.
The paper [WSJ] also said Mr. Kemp had met repeatedly with Department of Energy officials in Washington on behalf of Free Market Petroleum, where he is on the board of directors, and had accompanied its executives to meet with Mr. Chavez and other Venezuelan executives in Caracas.
Venezuelan critics of the oil contract most of whom oppose Mr. Chavez's rule say there is no record of Free Market Petroleum having carried out any previous business transaction. It was registered in Delaware late last year, as was its holding company, Free Market Holdings.
Saddam's Man in Washington (The first conviction in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal)
The Weekly Standard, January 31, 2005
SAMIR VINCENT was visiting Baghdad when Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. He had not lived in his native Iraq for some three decades, having left in 1958 for the United States and a track-and-field career that would later land him in the Boston College Athletic Hall of Fame. Maybe Vincent's presence in Iraq was simply bad timing. Although Americans were not exactly hostages in the tense days after the invasion, they were not free to leave Iraq. So when Vincent, a naturalized citizen, and Illinois businessman Michael Saba managed to escape by taking a taxicab eight hours to the Jordanian border and hitchhiking the remaining 50 miles to Amman, their adventure was news.(snip)
Vincent is the first person to be charged in connection with the burgeoning U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. According to information filed by the U.S. government in the Southern District of New York, Vincent "consulted with and repeatedly received direction from the Government of Iraq in the course of lobbying officials of the United States Government and the United Nations to repeal sanctions against Iraq." Last week he pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, making false statements on his income taxes, and related offenses.
Court documents tell us that Vincent began his activities on Saddam's behalf in "at least" 1992. ...
(snip)
From 1998 to 2003, Vincent tried to prevail upon former U.S. government officials with ties to top Clinton and Bush administration officials who might press his case with their powerful friends. Among those he contacted was former U.S. representative and GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who had long opposed the sanctions. (Newsweek magazine reported this week that the FBI has interviewed Kemp. Although Kemp reportedly approached Colin Powell and Dick Cheney about back-channel communications with Vincent and later announced his intention to launch a "21st Century Marshall Plan" with the Iraqi American, there is no indication that Kemp is the target of an investigation.) Vincent reported on his progress to the Iraqi Intelligence Service and others working for Saddam.
Op-Ed - Will the real (Jack) Kemp please stand up?It mentions some of the same things in the excerpts I provided above.
Washington Examiner ^ | Tuesday, March 15, 2005 | Thor Halvorssen
Posted on 03/16/2005 6:23:25 PM PST by Conservative Firster
I always felt that Kemp abandoned Dole before the election when he was running as his vice president.
McCain, 71, digging up once-buried people like Kemp is sure going to help his 2008 campaign (/sarc).
Yep....you've always been able to find out about them darn facts. D@amn. McRino just keeps looking worser and worser to me. Ping to post #73.
It seems that McCain has invoked these names in hopes that THEY will reach out to voters. I suspect that perhaps that is because the arrogant McCain is going to refuse to actually seek conservatives. He will demand that we flock to him...
Oh my goodness... I didn’t notice what an old thread this was! Thankfully, you didn’t leave that last erroneous reply just lying there!!!