I think it's a shame people here at DU aren't more critical of these kinds of hit-pieces against Obama and his team.
I think it's even more of a shame that this clump of words that isn't worth printing on toilette paper is on the front page of DU.
If you want to read this crap for yourself, the article link is:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story?page=1Here's some flawed logic that's turned into sensationalized facts from the article itself, some right in the very lead or kicker:
The article is titled "Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant".
Right off the bat, the title isn't even correct. On the second page, buried deep within:
Financial disclosure statements that are required of U.S. House members show Emanuel made at least $320,000 from his time at Freddie Mac. Two years after leaving the firm, Emanuel reported an additional sale of Freddie Mac stock worth between $100,001 and $250,000. The document did not detail whether he profited from the sale.
The bottom line is they don't know if he made money at Freddie Mac or not and exactly how much he made. If he lost money on the stock, that would certainly negate money he earned from a board salary (if he did receive one, but they don't know since they haven't seen all the records). That's ok, they still present it as fact that Emanuel profited from his short stay.
They also say he had a "free ride" but they don't know what his contribution actually was. They just know he didn't chair any committees.
Next is the positioning of the facts next to the current financial crisis:
Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.
First, the bad loans were loaned out since the Bush Administration relaxed oversight and loan policy, not during Emanuel's time on the board. Oh, wait, when did Emanuel serve on the board? You wouldn't know unless you dug into the article:
Yet proxy statements that detailed committee assignments showed none for Emanuel, Free or Ickes during the time they served in 2000 or 2001. Most other directors carried two committee assignments each.
Ohhh, he served on the board *before* Bush took office, before Bush loaded it with his own cronies who led us to our current situation.
And if Emanuel didn't actually serve on any committees, he couldn't really have affected policy that led to our situation now could he? But this piece-of-crap hit-piece is full of contradictions like this. For example, the piece tries to show that Emanuel had a conflict of interest after leaving Freddie Mac (in 2001) and becoming a Representative (in 2003). Here's how they frame it:
Then-Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel also hosted a fundraising lunch for Emanuel's 2002 campaign that netted $9,500 from top company executives. Brendsel was later ousted in the accounting scandal.
Federal campaign records show that Emanuel received $25,000 from donors with ties to Freddie Mac in the 2002 campaign cycle, more than twice the amount collected that election by any other candidate for the U.S. House or Senate.
But I will give this to the 'authors' of this piece. They at least reported that Emanuel had the integrity to recuse himself from Congressional issues involving Freddie Mac... in the very last sentence of the article (which most people won't read by the time they get pissed off by the first 2 paragraphs).
Oh well, I guess I should just get outraged at the title and first two paragraphs like everyone else and not read the entire article next time. :sarcasm: