Extremely Rare Endorsements

This is probably the first time in American political history where all of the living former Presidents of the United States (from opposing parties) have, in one way or another, endorsed the challenger to the incumbent executive.

President George H.W. Bush has formerly endorsed Mitt Romney for President. George W. Bush has done the same (“I’m for Mitt Romney!”). Those two endorsements from Republican former presidents would be expected. The following endorsements? Not so much:

Bill Clinton, on several different occasions, has defended Mitt Romney’s qualifications (as governor) and his “sterling business career”. He has also given us a timeline for when we can expect the economy to improve and who to hold accountable. Two years ago (September 2010), speaking at the Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, Clinton said that if the Democrats don’t have this mess straightened out, the voters should “vote them out”. Well, it is two years later and there is an election coming up, so…

I’m now standing by to hear what Jimmy Carter has to say about President Obama. Oops, wait a second. In an interview with MSNBC this past April, former President Carter said Romney had been “fairly competent” as governor of Massachusetts and that Carter would be “comfortable” with Romney as president (though he did try to pin the “right-wing extremist” tag on Romney later in the interview). Not a ringing endorsement, but close enough coming from Carter.

Geez, with friends like these…

The last endorsement (though indirect) of Romney (or whoever the Republican nominee would be) comes from none other than: President Barack Obama himself! During the 2008 campaign, Obama said that if he didn’t have the economic situation worked out by the end of his first term, then it would be a “one-term proposition’ for him. Well, we’re coming up on the end of his first term, so…

GE and the Left

Making connections between political actors can be fun sometimes. Especially when those connections highlight a hypocritical aspect of their stated beliefs and notions. In this case, the connection is between standard leftist thinking and the actual facts of a modern corporation. The Occupy folks have been railing against corporations, capitalism et al. for weeks now. It has been shown that they are a tad bit disingenuous about their protestations considering they are using Apple iPhones to communicate, wearing Gap clothing and drinking Starbucks coffee as they scream about the corporate takeover of the country.

I want to make another connection and it starts with GE (General Electric). GE's CEO is Jeffrey Immelt, who just so happens to serve as President Obama's informal economic adviser. Obama has spoken out against fat cats and private jet users, so it's curious that he would name the CEO of a multinational conglomerate as his adviser, but whatever. GE's business is pretty broad-based. They are involved in consumer appliances, loans, media, aviation, oil and gas among other things. The particular connection I want to make today has to do with their aviation and media businesses.

GE Aviation builds aircraft engines for civilian and military aircraft. Pretty much all of the military aircraft's engines are made by GE. From the F-16, F15 and F117 to the B-1, B-2 and C-5, GE has pretty well cornered the market on powering our military's aircraft. No problem right? Right. Now, let's go to the media. GE is a 49% holder of NBCUniversal, which has a cable division called MSNBC. MSNBC is a combination of two corporations: Microsoft and NBC. As most people know, MSNBC is a left-leaning news organization that competes with FoxNews, which is a right-leaning news organization. Still no problem.

Here comes the problem: leftist are usually about peace and love and harmony and such right? Well, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has set up a foundation with his wife Melinda. You've probably heard of it. It's goal is to help underdeveloped regions of the world. Noble goal. So, the problem comes when the global conglomerate that makes engines for some of the most advanced killing machines in the history of the world, runs a peace/love/harmony-loving media outfit that is partnered with a billionaire philanthropist helping in some of the regions that those aircraft have or could be dropping bombs. Not to mention that the anti-corporate messages coming out of the White House in support of the Occupy movement belie the fact that one of the largest (actually the 6th) corporations in the country has its hands in some weird, disparate operations.

I'm not saying that any of this is corrupt or illegal, it just struck me as overly hypocritical on the left's part to not see this connection as problematic for their beliefs.