BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher, April 7, 2008

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe

Mark Penn did not get "demoted" from being Clinton's chief strategist for meeting with the Colombian government.  He got officially "pushed" aside for getting caught, which had the danger of once again exposing Senator Clinton's hypocrisy and deception on fair trade and union issues.  Of course, he will still be "consulting" for the Clinton campaign. Natch.

Consider this April 4th Clinton campaign statement "inoperative" now [1]: "Today, the Clinton campaign was asked about the [Colombian] meeting, and a spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said that Mr. Penn’s work had nothing to do with the campaign and that he did not see any conflict or perception problem."

BuzzFlash has a homework assignment for our readers. Examine the following excerpts from articles this past week about what was clearly a Clinton campaign overture to Colombia to get involved in the U.S. primaries by denouncing Obama. But there’s more to it than that. Despite all the ongoing Mark Penn apologies, he’s the poster boy for the corporate lobbyist destructive infestation of our government – and he is Clinton’s lead strategist.

Clinton can’t ever distance herself from Penn, because she chose to put a guy so compromised that he represents some of the worst corporate violators in the world as head of Burson-Marsteller as the chief strategist of her campaign. As Senator Clinton keeps telling us, actions speak louder than words. And the Senator fired Patti Solis Doyle and kept Mark Penn on in her campaign, to this day. (See update at bottom of commentary. Sunday evening, Penn formally got the heave-ho as official lead strategist, but apparently he'll still be doing polling and consulting. His crime: he got caught by the Wall Street Journal.)

This speaks volumes about how the corporations and "K Street" lobbyists will be running the White House if Clinton were to be the Dem nominee and get elected. Clinton’s campaign is so compromised ethically and in terms of contradictions to her stated public policies by the RepubliCrat Penn – and her "centrist" policies before the primaries started -- that it leaves you breathless.

In fact, Charles Black who runs McCain’s campaign, works as a lobbyist for a subsidiary of Burson-Marsteller, of which Penn is still CEO (he didn’t even take a leave of absence). On top of that, Penn is paid millions of dollars by the Clinton campaign to even another firm: his own consulting company.

So do your homework. I will be back tomorrow with some comments on this cesspool of corrupt campaign relationships, known as the K Street lobbyist/DLC/RepubliCrat ruling elite.

[BuzzFlash has italicized a select few key sentences.]

"Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.

Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn't there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm. The firm has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department

Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, Mr. Penn's campaign-consulting firm, received more than $10 million in payments from the Clinton campaign as of the end of February, according to federal election filings.

"Mr. Penn declined to comment. Howard Wolfson, communications director for Sen. Clinton's campaign, said in an email that "Mark was not there on behalf of the campaign" and referred further questions to Burson-Marsteller. "Sen. Clinton's opposition to the trade deal with Colombia is clear," Mr. Wolfson added.

A Burson-Marsteller spokesman didn't return calls or emails seeking comment.

A spokesman for Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe said the ambassador met with Mr. Penn to discuss the bilateral agenda. "There have also been meetings with the advisers to the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain," he said. "It's the embassy's job to explain Colombia's reality."

"Mr. Penn has been scrutinized over the dual roles he holds with his firm and the Clinton campaign. Burson-Marsteller's contract advising the Colombian government is one of several examples of the firm advising clients on causes Sen. Clinton has opposed."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726769569388303.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news [2]

From ABC News pertaining to Mark Penn’s compensation:

"According to Justice Department filings, Colombia agreed last year to pay Burson-Marsteller $300,000 to help ‘educate members of the U.S. Congress and other audiences/ about the trade deal and secure continued U.S. funding for the $5 billion anti-narcotics program Plan Colombia. Penn's political consulting firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland, has been paid $10.8 million so far by Clinton's campaign."

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0408/509128.html [3]

From Afrik.com about the Penn, Colombian, Clinton foreign policy issues:

"Mark Penn, chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a global public affairs and lobbying company owned by Britain’s WPP and Mrs. Clinton’s top aide, apologized for the meeting with the Colombian representative. A colleague of Mr. Penn said the executive, who is not listed as working on the account in Burson-Marsteller’s public filings, was not actively working on the Colombia account and had attended a breakfast meeting with the ambassador as a "courtesy" to a colleague. The Clinton campaign said Mrs. Clinton would vote against the deal and that she and Mr. Penn had not discussed the trade agreement."

"How can we trust that a President Hillary Clinton would stand strong against this trade deal when her top advisor is being paid by Colombia to promote it?" said Jim Hove, the general president of the Teamsters.

The incident was not the first time that critics have assailed Mr. Penn for his dual role as chief executive of a powerful Washington lobbying firm and Mrs. Clinton’s top strategist.

At the heart of the criticism are allegations that Mrs. Clinton espouses one set of values, while Mr. Penn’s company works on behalf of clients that undermine those values, such as Cintas, a food services company that has fought unionization efforts by its workers."

http://en.afrik.com/article13092.html [4]

From the Associated Press about the Bush hand-picked President of Columbia, Uribe, singling out Obama (on Wednesday and again on Friday) – but not Clinton – for withering criticism, just two days after his U.S. Ambassador met with Penn. Now, remember that Clinton "claims" to have the same concerns about the killing of trade unionists in Columbia and anti-free trade agreement policy as Obama, but Uribe did not criticize Clinton at all, just Obama. Interesting, eh?:

Colombia's president sharply criticized U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday for opposing a trade deal with his country, calling the Democrat out of touch with the realities of the South American nation.

The White House is urging Congress to approve the agreement, which would remove most tariffs on American exports and cement Colombia's preferential trade status with the United States.

But Illinois Sen. Obama said Wednesday he would oppose the deal.

"I deplore the fact that Senator Obama, aspiring to be president of the United States, should be unaware of Colombia's efforts," President Lever Uribe said in a statement. "I think it is for political calculations that he is making a statement that does not correspond to Colombia's reality."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g0QWd0hI_BMCPs0zeVkg0oenx6RAD8VQ2HJO0 [5]

From NarcoNews.com about the Clinton Columbian connection. After reading it, one can see that Penn was not just representing Burson-Marsteller (whose unsavory clients have included Blackwater among others), but was there representing the Clinton campaign – whatever their now pro forma denials to the contrary:

By "efforts," Uribe referred to his administration’s public relations campaign to improve Colombia’s deserved reputation as the hemisphere’s worst abuser of human rights, particularly as they apply to workers and unions. Senator Barack Obama, on Wednesday, had cited "the violence against unions in Colombia" as his primary reason for opposing a proposed US-Colombia "free trade" agreement.

That Uribe singled-out Obama is revealing: the Illinois senator’s rival for the Democratic nomination for president in the United States, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, also says she opposes the US-Colombia "free trade" pact. That clearly doesn’t worry Uribe: the Clinton organization has a long history of backing – politically and economically – the Colombian far right, its narco-politicians and paramilitary death squads, of whom Uribe is supreme leader. In 2000, then-US president Bill Clinton went on Colombian national TV to announce "Plan Colombia," the multi-billion dollar US military intervention that keeps Uribe and his repressive regime in power to this day.

"I will oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements."

More extensively quoted in The Philadephia Bulletin [8], Obama added:

"So you can trust me when I say that whatever trade deals we negotiate when I’m president will be good for American workers, and that they’ll have strong labor and environmental protections that we’ll enforce."

Bill Clinton returned the favor by hosting Uribe as a "featured attendee" at the Clinton Global Initiative [10] annual meeting in New York last September.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue52/article3055.html [11]

From the Wall Street Journal about Obama telling Uribe to stop letting the right wing militias get away with murdering unionists, after Uribe denounced Obama following the Colombian meeting with Penn. Also please note Hillary Clinton’s comment at the end of the story. (It is even more ironic, because although the Wall Street Journal doesn’t get it right in this story. It turned out that a Clinton staff member had talked directly with the Canadian government via telephone to Ottawa, telling them not to worry about her anti-NAFTA campaign comments, and that the conservative Canadian government apologized for blowing up the consular meeting with an Obama aide in Chicago. Furthermore, the subsequently released "First Lady" schedule confirmed that she had played a role in championing NAFTA):

Sen. Barack Obama pushed back against criticism from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who said Obama opposes the free-trade deal between Washington and Bogota because of election politics.

"I think the president is absolutely wrong on this," Obama told reporters on his plane Friday morning. "You’ve got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition." The Illinois senator has promised to rebuild America’s reputation abroad.

Needless to say, many of the unions are furious with Colombia’s tolerance for the killings of union leaders and members and the Teamsters denounced the Clinton friendly Columbian government:

"Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said Friday he is shocked but not surprised that Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, met with Colombian officials about promoting a trade deal with that country.

Clinton said she is against a proposed Colombian Free Trade Agreement. That stance has been severely undermined by the actions of Penn, a highly paid and influential figure in her campaign.

"How can we trust that a President Hillary Clinton would stand strong against this trade deal when her top advisor is being paid by Colombia to promote it?" Hoffa said. "To support this so-called 'free trade agreement' is anathema to the labor movement and to anyone who supports working people, social justice or the environment."

This isn't the first time Penn has advocated policies that contradict stances taken by Clinton, arguably his most important client. Penn is the chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, an international communications and lobbying firm with a long history of defending and advocating for union busters.

"Someone like Mark Penn should not be dictating strategy, and possibly legislation, for a Democratic candidate for president," Hoffa said.

Though all of the trade deals since NAFTA have harmed American workers, the proposed deal with Colombia is especially repugnant to U.S. labor unions.

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for union members. More than 2,500 union members have been murdered by Colombian death squads since the 1980s. There have been more than 400 murders since President Uribe took office five years ago. Yet the Colombian government has done nothing to effectively stop death squads from murdering workers for trying to form unions.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/banking-financial-services/20080404/DC1861404042008-1.html [15]

To complete the script for the week, the Colombian government pretended to act miffed that Penn "apologized" for meeting with them about "business" when he was running Clinton’s campaign, but that is all phony baloney. He was meeting with them about the campaign, because the Clintons are tight with Colombia and Hillary is only opposing a Colombian free trade agreement because she needs blue collar votes. So, we assume at the request of the Clinton campaign, Colombia "fired" Burson-Marsteller because Penn thought his meeting would be private, and Senator Clinton needed Colombia to fire Burson from the account so then she could say there was no longer a conflict of interest and not have to fire Penn, ergo this article from The Hill:

The government of Colombia has terminated its contract with Mark Penn’s lobbying firm one day after the senior strategist to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said it was a mistake to meet with the government’s officials about a pending free trade agreement.

Colombia said Penn showed "a lack of respect for Colombians" that was "unacceptable" when he said the meeting earlier this week was "an error in judgment." The remarks were made in a statement released by Colombia’s embassy.

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/colombia-sacks-mark-penn-2008-04-05.html [16]

Ciao!

BuzzFlash Update at 7 EST April 6:

The Clinton Campaign Must be Reading the BuzzFlash Editor's Blog. Senator Clinton Finally Gives Mark Penn the Heave-Ho After He Gets Caught Talking with the Colombians Who Just Happen to Then Attack Obama, While Penn is Also Getting Paid to Promote a Free Trade Pact with a Country in Which Union Members and Leaders are Being Murdered by the Dozens. [17]

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