Barack Obama:
“While I was working on those streets, watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart,”
A cheap shot if you ask me. Of course, Wal-Mart is always a good target, and when a candidate has ties to the giant, it plays well to mention it. But let’s look at Hillary’s connection to Wal-Mart, shall we? Factcheck.org:
According to accounts from other board members, Clinton was a thorn in the side of the company’s founder, Sam Walton, on the matter of promoting women, few of whom were in the ranks of managers or executives at the time. She also strongly advocated for more environmentally sound corporate practices, board colleagues and company executives noted. She made limited progress in both areas, but she never voiced any objections to the company’s anti-union stand, they said. But in 2005 she returned a $5,000 contribution to her campaign from Wal-Mart, citing “serious differences” with its “current” practices.
Hillary may not have been able to accomplish her goals, but at least she tried. The attack by Obama was nothing more than an oportunity to link her name to a corporation the left hates. As the NY Sun notes:
Mr. Obama may have missed it, but in his home state of Illinois, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named Wal-Mart its 2007 corporation of the year. Mr. Obama may have missed it, but Wal-Mart was last year named one of the top 50 companies for African American MBAs by Black MBAs magazine. Mrs. Clinton’s association with the company is something for which our senator should be not attacked but praised.
I wouldn’t go as far with the praise as the NY Sun, but her contributions seem to be worth a lot more than the shot levied at her by Obama would suggest. Wal-Mart deserves criticism for many of its policies, but in the past few years, it’s done pretty well, particularly in the area of environmentalism. In fact, The Weather Channel has named Wal-Mart on of the 10 names you need to know in climate change
In an October, 2005, speech titled “Twenty-First Century Leadership,” Wal-Mart committed to three large sustainability goals: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain our resources and the environment. The company set goals of increasing fuel efficiency in Wal-Mart’s truck fleet by 25 percent over the next three years, and doubling it within 10 years; reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012; and reducing energy use at stores by 30 percent.
Operating more than 7,000 stories that generated $345 billion world-wide, Wal-Mart has begun to buy solar power, make its trucks more efficient, sell organic food and cotton, reduce company waste, attempt to bring more sustainable practices to industries as diverse as gold mining and packaging, and the company has gone beyond legal requirements to get potentially hazardous chemicals out of the products on its shelves.
For all its faults, Wal-Mart is doing some good – probably more than all large corporations. An example:
Wal-Mart announced the opening of its second generation of High-Efficiency stores (HE.2) that will use 25% less energy than Wal-Mart Supercenters. […] In addition to saving energy, the new stores will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by lowering refrigerant by 90% […]
The HE.2 series will incorporate several learnings from the HE.1 stores and new technological advances, including white roofs, low-flow bathroom faucets, LED lights and an advanced daylight harvesting system.
All good things, no? And Wal-Mart seems to be doing what they’re doing in spite of criticism, not because of it. Wal-Mart has a long way to go in a lot of areas and deserves criticism. But is it not possible that Clinton’s prodding while serving on the Board of the company had at least a little influence on some of the good they’ve recently done?
in canaduh
I love walmart’s brand of spray paint , its the best for lefty stencil graffiti
Jake
Time for another dick in hand moment because Michael D. can’t read the shit he’s using to support his arguments:
Leaving aside how Wal-Mart achieves those low prices and whether that constitutes doing something for the poor, how the fuck can one even begin to make a connection between Clinton’s work on the board and “Every Day Low Prices”?
You can’t. Unless you’re stupid, just plain lying or possibly writing an advetorial for Wal-Mart.
In addition, I believe Obama’s jab about Wal-Mart was in response to an outright distortion about work he did for a “slum lord.”
But then we get this:
Jesus Christ, are you really saying that because she was around in 1992 Wal-Mart announced that it would start to go green?
Don’t forget to put your dick away before you go to work.
magisterludi
I’m surprised Obama would go there as his missus has some recent ties to Walmart, too. She quit the board of Treehouse Foods, a major Walmart supplier, back in 2007.
Scotty
Can we just agree they got their cheapshots in and, in the end, that neither of them helped themselves?
Michael D.
Classy!
Dennis - SGMM
Hillary’s rejoinder, that Obama had represented a slum lord while working at a legal firm, was a cheap shot and disingenuous as well. She was implying that somehow Obama condoned slumlordism. Does this mean that an attorney who represents an accused murderer condones murder? She knows well enough that attorneys sometimes represent clients whom they detest. She also knows that everyone is entitled to representation in this country.
In short, she knows better but she took the shot anyway.
Pug
She was implying that somehow Obama condoned slumlordism.
That was nothing. She also implied he didn’t mind having sex shops near schools and didn’t care about victims of sexual abuse because of a couple of technical votes in the Illinois legislature.
My own feeling is “The Clintons” are going to come courting Democrats alienated by their despicable tactics after they secure the nomination, and they are going to find that quite a few of us won’t be very forgiving, and it isn’t really about Obama. They would have done the same to Edwards, Dodd, Biden or any other fellow Democrat.
As far as Hillary doing good for the poor by sitting on Wal Mart’s board, please. As Bill Clinton himself might say, “Give me a break”. Her position on the board was a typical power arrangement, just another job she got because of the influence of her husband.
Jake
Yep, plus they might be asked to do research on one part of a case and not have any real idea of what they’re handling. Is she really suggesting that any work done on any case might make the attorney a bad person? Yikes!
According to Obama he did about five hours (o noes!) for a church that wanted to build some sort of low-income housing project. So not only was it dishonest, it was the verbal equivalent of “Here, take this stick I’m trying to hit you with and stick it up my nose!”
Whatevs. This is all fun and games compared to the final races.
Incertus (Brian)
Yeah, like your post deserved much more of a reply than that.
Bob In Pacifica
That debate, especially that stretch of the debate, was nothing but cheap shots. So? That’s pretty much what we’ve been getting from Clinton. It would be a relief for the Clinton group to spend the day talking about economics.
By the way, Walmart is lousy for local economies and is the perfect corporate example of profiting from GATT and GATT-like trade agreements that have hollowed out the middle class/working class here in America. If Clinton had spent her time on the Walmart board singing “We Shall Overcome” and throwing her body in front of Sam Walton she could have explained on Monday night. Of course, as Clinton very well knows, hit-and-run smear politics are hard to defend against. That’s why she and her surrogates use it.
The Walmart line was the best line of the night. If it had been a boxing match that line staggered her. For the debate Edwards was the ultimate beneficiary. For the election it probably doesn’t matter. Clinton’s fix is in.
crayz
So she stood on their board, made some good money, and made a token show of advocating a couple liberal policies. How noble
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
I dunno what you’re after, but you need a better tactic.
Walmart, once you remove the media hype… is still a shitty company. It’s arch-rival is CostCo, which consistently maintains a high-standard of living for its employees while turning out profits.
WalMart squeezes every penny they can: labor, equipment, management, distribution; because their whole business model has been based on rapid expansion.
WalMart is a simple issue. They expand at the cost of their employees, of whom there are a lot.
Now, Hillary being on a board is a non-issue, and her record for being a pain in the ass certainly shines a little bit…
But WalMart is dark territory. Stay the hell out of there.
Dennis - SGMM
Clinton’s fix is in.
I hope not. Otherwise we have the sad prospect of another Clinton losing Congress for us. Republicans will get off of their deathbeds to vote against her and that will not help us down-ticket. The entire House is up for re-election this time as well as around three dozen Senate seats. I’d prefer to get bullet-proof majorities in the House and Senate to electing The First Woman President®.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
Unless you think Mikey-dee is trolling on his own blog… yes, his post deserves a reply. Even if it’s scathing.
Every1 iz a expurt when thur on da intarwebbs. Even when they’re completely wrong.
STEVEinSC
Seconded. This seems to be quite a pattern with her and her husband. They learned after leaving the trailer park in Arkansas and a year or two in the WH that it was better to join ’em than fight ’em. Bill Clinton is a little like another southerner, Huckabee, talk a good line but always be ready to do a little backroom compromising.
It’s the ‘down-South’ version of venture populism.
Pug
That service to Wal Mart was, indeed, noble. Unions that endorse Hillary Clinton are like battered spouses.
Zifnab
Living in Austin, I can tell you a couple Walmart stories about how the city had to fight tooth and nail to keep big box outlets from getting dropped on major aquaifier recharge zones. Hell, just getting them to recycle was a pestersome fight. This was before they abandoned their first complex – a sprawling three acre Supercenter on I-35 – so they could build a new sprawling Supercenter closer to the Whole Foods store in downtown. This new store was created by running a bunch of smaller botiques out of business, then leveling the area to drop another warehouse store down.
That Walmart is “going green” really warms my heart, in so far as I’m touched that some number cruncher actually sat down and did the math to discover that “green” can equal “cheap”. That they hire large numbers of minorities warms my soul, in so far as I’m warmed at the idea that Black MBAs are getting picked up at lower salaries and in lamer working conditions than their White counterparts, but at least they’re getting hired at all. The ability for a super giant corporation to turn a massive profit by employing the elderly and infirm gives me hope for a better tomorrow or some such shit.
It would be nice if other corporations took a page from Walmart and put aside racism, ageism, and anti-environmentalism to really turn a profit. But embracing intelligent business practices hardly makes them saints. So… :p
TheFountainHead
A-fucking-men.
Zifnab
Also, somewhat off topic.
TheFountainHead
That was on Digg last night, but I tell ya, it gets even better when you put it right next to this.
Makes ya think the kids know something….
The Other Steve
I have a Costco membership… I shop there pretty often.
I think attacking Hillary for Wal-Mart ties is cheap, but no less so than claiming Obama loves Reagan.
I thought that was funny at the debate when they brought up the tired Reagan attack and Obama said “I said they had ideas… I didn’t say they were good ideas.”
Pan American
Ever been in one? They’re chock full of D voters. Far higher percentage than say in Whole Foods. Also, lets not get all weepy for some sepia toned bullshit about Mr. Mainstreet small business owner. Talk about your GOP loving, Bircher, reactionary asshats. I’d happily sell out to Wal-Mart before ever working for one of those fuckwits again- at least Wal-Mart gets payroll out on time.
I get a kick out of my buddy’s tales of collecting for the black market. He came to absolutely loathe sbo’s. Sexist, racist, homophobes with substance and\or gambling problems who believe they should never have to pay for anything. A pure distillation of today’s GOP.
Brachiator
It is decidedly odd that you gloss over all the cheap shots, deliberate distortions, and outright lies slung by the tag team of Bill and Hill, and somehow fasten on this one thing from Obama as a cheap shot.
Wait a minute. This is the woman riding the “Experience” donkey, proclaiming how hard she is going to work and how much she is going to get done from Day One, and then you fall back on “she didn’t accomplish anything, but at least she TRIED?”
You have got to be kidding. As others have noted, this is extra-crispy cynical political fu to sit on the Wal-Mart board, rake in a little cash, strengthen your Arkansas connections, and then cry crocodile tears about how you … tried to get things done and should be given style points for your efforts.
This is just nuts. Wal-Mart squeezes workers into low paying jobs, strips them of health insurance, distorts the local economy by knocking smaller competitors out the market, and you want to praise them for their environmental efforts?
And by the way, with its Chinese manufacturing connections, Wal-Mart, and other companies, are simply outsourcing their pollution. That they intend to be a little more green at home does not really amount to very much.
And as James Carville once said, it’s the economy, stupid. A shiny environment is not worth very much if people are suffering.
Buck
And that is why I have never understood the lefts hatred of all things WalMart. If the average Democratic voter is on the lower end of the payscale then doesn’t it stand to reason that it is primarily Democrats who work and who shop at WalMart?
Or is it a myth that the average Democratic voter is on the lower end of the payscale?
horatius
Walmart informercial on Balloon-juice?
Jorge
You buried the lead
“She made limited progress in both areas,”
Hillary Clinton has an absolutely underwhelming record achieving on her own.
Hillary thinks she’s suffered every Republican attack, but she has not seen this one. They are going to paint her as an ineffectual spouse who relies on her husband’s record to show experience and on her husband to defend her. And while it might make liberals mad, plenty of folks in the middle are going to say – hum, that’s true.
Hillary is quite fortunate that democratic 527s haven’t gone after her on these issues. The Republicans won’t have any problem. Wait until August and we’ll see the full on attack on Hillary’s “experience” being a sham and on her being number 2 on her own Presidential ticket.
And the attack will be led by self-made Republican women. I can see it
“As a single mother of 3, I look to John McCain as the one true leader in this election.
John isn’t running on someone else’s record.
John can face challenges on his own.
During times like these, our nation needs a leader who can make their own decisions; a President with a clear plan to protect us. That man is John McCain.”
Jake
I will now trigger a plague of jackalopes. Observe:
Do you conduct polls of some sort, or do you have a link that supports your statement?
Zifnab
Walmart caters to the poor by giving them cheap goods. They get these cheap goods by short changing their suppliers and their employees. So, in short, Walmart gives low prices to poor people by making people poor. While poor people don’t like being made poor, they also don’t like paying more than they have to for goods and services.
On the flip side, rich people buy big houses with lavish home theater systems and extensive wine cabinets. They stock their theaters with movies – FROM LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD! – and their wine cabinets with imported wine – FROM FRANCE! – and yet they still vote Republican. Riddle me that.
Brachiator
Actually, it’s more that Walmart caters to its shareholders by establishing stores which gives lower prices to various consumers while making people poor.
Actually, the rich shop at Walmart and Costco and similar stores. Or send their staff to do the shopping there. They just keep quiet about it.
Bupalos
Whoever dropped that line about Wal-Mart being ok with dems because they shop there, that was the second stupiest thing I’ve read today. The first was the WalMart infomercial post that started it. The issue at hand was that Obama was doing public service for chump change, while HC was enjoying a fat, juicy, polished apple as political patronage from WalMart and a nice business conduit for the Clintons white house push. There was nothing cheap about that shot, unless you think a political patronage sinecure that ends up dumping $100,000 in stock in your lap for “advice from the governors wife” is on par service wise with Obama’s efforts in Chicago.
If HC begged for more viggerish for the rest of her gender from the Mart, if she got them to plant a few ficuses in the middle of their inland concrete seas, good on her. But don’t kid yourself about what this was.
Hypatia
So did Obama. There are plenty of good reasons to be critical of Wal-Mart, but he was using the name to get a knee-jerk reaction from the audience and put Clinton on the defensive, and why not. A shot across the bow. She fired right back,probably the correct tactical move in the circumstances. It wound up not being good for either of them.
Of course the whole business was all Hillary’s fault, as is everything, including hailstorms and sunspots.
Zifnab
Ah blame deh gubberment.
Beej
Wow! I thought I was reading John Cole’s Balloon Juice. But I seem to have somehow accessed the comment section at Red State!
Excuse me, but aren’t there more important issues to be discussed than who is not being nice enough? I’m probably going to vote for Obama in my state’s primary, but I don’t harbor any illusions about the fact that the man is an expert politician. You don’t get elected to the Senate from Illinois without knowing how to be a bare-knuckle street fighter. So let’s not lose our perspective here.
Dylan
I read the Michael D posts just to see the spittle fly from the ad hominem crowd.
I thought Jake was making a few valid points until he pissed in his helmet with his little outburst.
Chuck Butcher
Hillary from “open secrets”
HILLARY CLINTON (D)
Top Contributors
DLA Piper $356,100
Goldman Sachs $350,050
Morgan Stanley $323,550
Citigroup Inc $307,350
EMILY’s List $211,642
National Amusements Inc $193,850
JP Morgan Chase & Co $173,350
Kirkland & Ellis $172,000
Skadden, Arps et al $151,460
Greenberg Traurig LLP $150,900
Cablevision Systems $135,113
Merrill Lynch $125,550
I’m for the little person…shit.
Jess
Barack, from “Open Secrets”
(Let’s try to judge according to the same standard, kids!)
BARACK OBAMA (D)
Top Contributors
Goldman Sachs $369,078
Lehman Brothers $229,090
National Amusements Inc $220,950
JP Morgan Chase & Co $216,759
Sidley Austin LLP $203,325
Exelon Corp $194,750
Citigroup Inc $180,650
Citadel Investment Group $166,600
Jones Day $158,400
Skadden, Arps et al $150,900
UBS AG $146,150
Time Warner $142,718
Harvard University $141,700
University of California $126,972
Jenner & Block $122,419
Kirkland & Ellis $111,951
UBS Americas $106,680
Morgan Stanley $104,425
WilmerHale $102,360
Credit Suisse Group $92,300
Kynn
…Michael D has admitted that he trolls this blog (which I and most people consider John’s, not Michael’s “own”) in order to get things to laugh at about work with his co-workers.