Ford Motors' Mike Moran explains what a $250K Bush donation buys

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/

Via TomPaine.com, here is the list of inaugural donors ( http://www.inaugural05.com/donors/ ) who are underwriting what's expected to be the most expensive inauguration in history. As Tom Paine reminds us, "Bush calls them his base."

And just what do the titans of industry expect in return? What they've had from the day George W. Bush stepped into office: access and influence. As Public Citizen points out in its analysis of inaugural contributions, numerous "significant contributors" to the inaugural fund "have already received many legislative and regulatory favors from the Bush administration, and ... stand to get even more in the second term."

This idea isn't new, of course, that corporations and executives buy access to the most powerful in Washington (and it didn't start with George W. Bush, although he has welcomed corporate America into the policymaking process in Washington with an intensity we've perhaps never seen before). But a quote from a Ford Motor Co. spokesman in this Reuters piece shocked us for its brazenness. It's not just the movers and shakers in the executive and legislative branches who are being wooed by industry, it's the judiciary, too.

"It does give us an opportunity to interact with those that are in the government, those that are in the administration, those that are in the Congress, and those that are in the judiciary, and policymakers that are involved with the process in Washington," said Mike Moran, a spokesman for Ford Motor Co., another $250,000 donor.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Yeah let's get rid of those punitive damages...we didn't mean

to cover up the faulty design of our Pinto (i.e. human barbeque machine), the rollover rate on our Explorers or anything else we've covered up that harms you that you don't know about yet.

[MidwestTransplant]

2. On CNBC,

The comentatator asked the CFO if this was just basically a contribution to democracy saying that "you would have done this if John Kerry were elected too, right?" The CFO said he couldn't say that they would have.

I am not buying a Ford car again. I currently drive Mercury.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. "...with an intensity we've perhaps never seen before..."

You know, regardless of how Bush ends up in the history books, I believe that NO ONE will criticize him in one key area. He will perhaps be remembered as the most aggressive enabler of the wealthy in America, the man who made the rich richer, perhaps even beyond THEIR expectations.

He won't be remembered for shrinking the middle class, because we already know the GOP talking points on this...if you're not financially secure, you're not working hard enough...OR, you need to go back to Junior College to acquire the skills needed in the "changing job market."



:grr: