Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, “he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.”
The Obama-Daschle connection is much deeper than the article suggests. Indeed, the New York Times covered Daschle’s role in February. Daschle is in Obama’s Veepstakes. Many people in Obama’s inner circle have close ties to Daschle. After getting the boot from the Senate, Daschle maintained his mailing list of 85,000 donors, and rented it to only one candidate. As Howard Fineman put it:
Daschle’s unusually early endorsement of Obama last February gave the newcomer desperately-needed instant clout among insiders who were resigned to the inevitability of Hillary Clinton, but praying for an alternative.
Obama’s top adviser on energy and the environment, Jason Grumet, has ties to Daschle and another ethanol backing former Senator, Bob Dole. Obama backed the hideous farm bill passsed last December, which extended the subsidies for corn ethanol (which many economists, consumer advocates, environmental experts and tax groups see as a boondoggle that benefits agribusiness conglomerates), as well as the tariffs on imported sugar cane ethanol (which is cheaper and more efficient). That bill — asGrumet noted at the time — also effectively requires the creation of a similar boondoggle for switchgrass which Obama also supports (though switchgrass is at least more efficient than corn).
The NYT barely mentions — as it previously reported — the role of corn-based ethanol in jacking up food prices, leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. And it skips over the NYT’s previous reportage that biofuels may well increase global warming over the next century. After all, highlighting those aspects of ethanol would only underscore the degree to which Obama is in the ethanol tank, for reasons that have zero to do with Hope or Change.
Update: Malk-a-lanche!
Update x2: NRO’s Andrew Stuttaford on the switchgrass: “It’s promising, but not for years, much like the drilling for oil off the U.S. coast that Obama opposes partly because it will, uh, take too long.”
Angie
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 3:31 am:
Well, I am telling you, this guy is like the little bunny battery that kept going and going..I am so sick of him but he just keeps making the news, news that ticks me off! LOL!
What else are we going to find out about Obamamama?
We can’t expect too much from the NYT. They are going to put the Obama campaign strategists spin on everything about the guy. Maybe they get excited7 get chills like Chris Matthews did..oh, slap my face! Did I say that?
Obama does not mind the higher fuel prices, does he? Seems I remember he said something like we could expect them. 4$ a gallon probably is not high enough..after all, we must catch up to Europe’s high prices and then well, you know, the economy of America should go down in many globalists view to bring the other countries up. Sarcasm here.
Good post NC.
ChenZhen
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 4:38 am:
Well, it was just copied and pasted from the protein wisdom blog.
No Compromises
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 5:13 am:
Chen, So, you stopped over here just to say that?
Okay, Good post protein wisdom!
Obama Couldn’t Possibly Have Another Compound « ChenZhen’s Chamber
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 5:46 am:
[...] ChenZhen’s Chamber Official Blog of the Infamous Netizen ChenZhen « Mental Gymnastics: Not An Olympic Event (I checked) Obama Couldn’t Possibly Have Another Compound June 24, 2008 “Obamunists” [...]
ChenZhen
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 6:31 am:
NC- Actually, I caught your use of “Obamunists”, and stopped over for that.
No Compromises
on Jun 25th, 2008
@ 4:40 pm:
It’s a pretty catchy description doncha think?