I can appreciate that reporters will occasionally chase inane campaign stories, but this one strikes me as unusually vapid.
Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign has returned a $2,000 check after discovering that it came from a former South Korean president’s son who has been arrested and charged with tax evasion.
The campaign gave back the check last week after learning from The Associated Press that it came from Chun Jae Yong, who was arrested by South Korean authorities in February – six months after his donation – and charged with evading taxes on millions of dollars in inheritance money. Mr. Chun’s father, Chun Doo Hwan, the former South Korean president, was convicted of bribery in 1997 and pardoned the next year.
So, in other words, a legal U.S. resident contributed to a presidential candidate. Because the donor has a criminal past, the campaign returned the check. That’s it. Kerry could have even kept the money — it was, after all, a legal contribution — but the campaign returned it to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Is this a story? I don’t think so.
I try and always look at these stories in reverse for intellectual honesty. Would I care if it were a contribution to Bush? Honestly, I’d hardly give it a second thought. There’s just nothing here.
And yet:
“These revelations raise serious and troubling questions about the fund-raising practices of the Kerry campaign that the Kerry campaign has failed to answer,” said Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman.
Really, Steve? Name one.
But if the Bush campaign really wants to go there, and question a campaign’s ethics based on the moral standing of its donors, I’m delighted. In fact, as TBogg noted last night, there’s a certain Bush donor that we’ll put at the top of the list.
Enron contributed $736,800 to George W. Bush over the past eight years, his single largest contributor. Many are looking for a smoking gun that will link Enron, directly, to specific favors. They want to see what specific decisions Enron bought. It is possible that such decisions will be uncovered, the evidence supplied.
But there are different ways in which influence manifests itself, and not all are direct. Influence can create a community of interest in which the priorities are unspoken but nonetheless shared. Whether by shaping goals and determining what should be undertaken to achieve them, or by establishing that various parties jointly desire a particular outcome, a community of interest can be a powerful thing.
It appears that there was a corporate community of interest which was strongly linked to Enron. The community included, through obvious linkages that are detailed below, the current President of the United States, George W. Bush.
Consider the old analogy of ducks, but in another manifestation. If a school of birds float like a flock of ducks, feed like a flock of ducks, quack like a flock of ducks, there is a high likelihood that it is a flock of ducks.
Of the twenty largest contributors to George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign, fully half had major links to Enron; indeed, five of his seven largest seven contributors were connected to Enron. No matter what they did or did not do on the record, that sure looks like a flock of ducks, with George W. Bush in their midst, paddling toward and into the presidency.
Kenny Boy Lay vs. Chun Jae Yong? Bring…it…on.