Posted on 07/12/2002 3:11:27 PM PDT by Lady In Blue
July 13, 2002 -- A new TV ad tries to link the Bush team to all the corporate mischief that's come to light recently. What it does best, though, is point up the hypocrisy of its own sponsors.
Who might they be? Read on.
Certainly, you'd have a hard time figuring out who's behind the ad from just watching it; it's careful not to say.
Yet the spot is all too clear in suggesting that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt have been less than candid - by hiding their personal ties to the business world.
The ad actually has the nerve to call Bush "sly like a fox" for his "tough talk" to businesses amid allegations he engaged in insider trading while a director of Harken Energy Corp. 12 years ago.
Viewers are supposed to conclude that Bush & Co. are content to let Wall Street fleece a vulnerable public.
Now just who would suggest such horrible, nasty things?
Surprise, surprise: The ad's sponsors are a bunch of Bill Clinton cronies.
In particular, a group called American Family Voices, headed by Clinton aide Michael Lux.
Also behind the ad:
* Clinton attack pet James Carville,
* Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart, and
* The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a co-owner of the Democratic Party. AFSCME ponied up $800,000 in seed money for American Family Voices two years ago.
What rank hypocrisy.
These folks demand greater openness from corporations and Republicans - while they try to keep their own identities hush-hush.
Who is it really that's "sly like a fox"?
The hypocrisy grows thicker.
After all, most of the book-cooking happened on Clinton's watch - not Bush's.
Nor does the ad make mention of the $1,000 that then-novice investor and now Sen. Hillary Clinton mysteriously turned into $100,000.
Or the $100,000 that Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe ballooned into $18 million, by selling stock in Global Crossing before it went south.
Or the help McAuliffe provided in procuring a loan for the 1988 presidential campaign of Rep. Dick Gephardt.
Or the fact that, as The Post's Deborah Orin reported, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is demanding to see every document related to Bush's Harken sale, while refusing to release his own tax documents or to disclose his lobbyist-wife's business clients.
Bush's sale of Harken stock? Completely kosher - as the SEC found long ago. (See Byron York's article on page 17: The critics have no case at all.)
Not that facts will ever stop these folk.
Whoever they are.
I'm not BSing about the Bahrainis' role. It was the entire reason Bush sold his stock when he did. The announcement of the off shore drilling contract had boosted the price of Harken shares.
The whole thing was a scam from beginning to end designed to put money in the pocket of President Bush's kid. In the end, the wells never even got drilled because there wasn't enough oil there to make it worth while.
Boy did they screw the pooch if they were doing it to raise the price of the stock..... Gosh looks like they lost money for him if that was their object.....
Remember the Bush sale date was June 22, 1990
| Date | Open | High | Low | Close | Volume | Adj. Close* |
On June 22, 1990, Bush sold 212,140 shares of Harken at $4 a share, for a total sale of $848,560.
Don't you think maybe he needed the money to invest in the Rangers and that's why he sold when he did?
After working on his father's successful 1988 presidential campaign, he assembled the group of partners that purchased the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in 1989.
Bush used the proceeds of the Harken sale to pay off a loan he took to buy his interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team.
The malcontents on FR are only satisfied with their own personal version of the truth. Historical facts just get in the way.
However, the Bahraini announcement of the off shore drilling contract boosted the value of Bush's shares several fold. It was designed to put a large amount of money in Bush's hands.
That it was basically a scam is shown by two factors: a) Harken had no off shore drilling experience, and b) Harken never drilled a single well off shore in Barhain on the basis of that contract.
[Sometimes I think that a Republican President could murder someone in view of witnesses and most Freepers would find a way to deny or excuse it].
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