(9/6/08) Howard Gutman: Obama Campaign Employee, Lobbyist, & Weather Underground Defense Attorney

[Sandy in PA]

I posted this in the other thread about Gutman's sexist attack on Palin on Laura Ingraham's show on Friday, but I thought it needed its own space.

Howard Gutman was a defense attorney for Bill Ayers' Weather Underground killers, springing domestic terrorist Susan Rosenberg from prison back in 2001.

So, who is Howard Gutman, Obama's pointman on perfect parenthood? Mastermind of the "proper attack" on Gov. Sarah Palin?

Possibly one of the biggest, bloodiest scalps McCain could tack to the wall:

Official member of Barack Obama's campaign. You know, one of those folks eligible for something Obama calls "firing" should they attack a candidate's family --- properly or otherwise.

Only one of 35 bundlers to raise over $500,000 for Obama, on par with Hollywood moguls Daivd Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg

Not only a registered lobbyist, but Lobbyist of the Year (2006)

Not only Lobbyist of the Year, but he played a lobbyist (himself) on HBO's K Street

Did I mention he likes to lobby?

And that Obama does not?

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”

— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007

And last but not least, defense attorney for Bill Ayers' Weather Underground killers, springing domestic terrorist Susan Rosenberg from prison.
Like I said before, he can give Obama the finger over his "off limits" Palin family smear because Howard Gutman OWNS Barack Obama.


There are links to each of the items on the list at the following blog post:

http://perfunction.typepad.com/perfunction/

And here is the NYT story from 2001 about his link to Ayer's Weather Undergroud group:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06EED7133CF931A15752C0A9679C8B 63

BLOG AWAY!!

[sarge]

THIS IS THE STUFF THAT McCain NEEDS TO PUT IN HIS ADDS

As long as it is true, it is not mudslinging! I realize that is not the standard to which the Obama camp holds to, but McCain must!

IN FACT, THE VOTING PUBLIC NEEDS TO KNOW THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, make sure it is true first, then run adds like mad if it is.

The people deserve to know this as the MSM refuses to vet this man!

I think to date we are witnessing journalisms darkest and most corrupt hour!

[Sandy in PA]

THIS IS THE STUFF THAT McCain NEEDS TO PUT IN HIS ADDS

As long as it is true, it is not not mudslinging!

IN FACT, THE VOTING PUBLIC NEEDS TO KNOW THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, make sure it is true first, then run adds like mad if it is.

The people deserve to know this as the MSM refuses to vet this man!

I think to date we are witnessing journalisms darkest and most corrupt hour!

I know, Sarge--and its all true, and its all per the media who has tried to hard to hide it. The author of that blog backed up every one of the itesm on that list with a link.

[Paul F. Villarreal]

This is very important information. Thanks, Sandy.

[Sandy in PA]

This is very important information. Thanks, Sandy.

Any time. Pass it on.

[Calico]

Great information! Thanks! :)

Also, as I was researching the super delegates that supported Obama, I found many of them were lobbyist. Not a surprise at all . . .

[samkm]

Send to all media.

[Amy Dugan]

Damn
O'Reilly taped his Obama interview already

[foxyladi]

Any time. Pass it on.

thanks sandy we need to email this to all our peeps with pass it on

[Adayamo]

Send to all media.

They are not interested.
The McCain camp is the key to the media.
Once thy made an ad about this, the media will HAVE TO cover this!

[martreasures]

bump

[Laura Cereta]

This doesn't surprise me. :rolleyes: You're right, Sandy in PA, let's blog away on this and try to push it out there. We now have some help from "across the aisle", so we might get different results than during the primary (hopefully).

[Bad Kitty]

Thanks Sandy. I think Fox is going to do a special on BO's friends. I hope they play that Youtube video with the friends theme on it.

[Amy Dugan]

Thanks Sandy. I think Fox is going to do a special on BO's friends. I hope they play that Youtube video with the friends theme on it.

hasn't Fox bean lurking around on this forum since the conventions?

[freethinker]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-gutman/email-to-a-rabbi-wrong-or_b_95924.html


Gutman takes a long time to say: What Wright says isn't Obama's fault, Obama shouldn't have to defend his love of country, what Wright said makes sense because AA's have had a bad time, Jews and whites are just as bad, Obama wrote his own speech and is amazing.

Almost as soon as Barack Obama's speech on race in America ended and for days thereafter, the calls came flooding in. Most from Jews; most reacting with admiration and relief after hearing Senator Obama deliver "A More Perfect Union," discussing race, religion and Reverend Wright. But a couple mentioned a draft of an upcoming sermon that was already being circulated and would be delivered at a local temple. Surely, I thought, the congregants and the community deserved better.

And so I wrote:

From: Howard W. Gutman
To: Rabbi
Subject: Your Proposed Saturday Sermon

Dear Rabbi --
I am a conservative Jew by upbringing and a reformed Jew by practice. My father was a Holocaust survivor, who spent the entire war uncaptured in Poland, before coming to this country under a phoney Danzig passport and raising two children first in the Bronx NY and then in our "palace" -- a three bedroom, one bath home in Queens NY. (He spent his adult life in the New York garment district before passing away in 1973 when I was 16 years old.) In the interest of full disclosure, let me note that, along with being a lawyer in Washington DC, I am an original member of Senator Obama's National Finance Committee and co-chair of Surrogate Fundraising; I assist with the Jewish community and other communities of faith; and I hold other equally meaningless titles with the campaign. I would hope, however, that I would be writing this same email even were I a long time friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton or John McCain.

I am writing to urge you to revise the sermon "Sen. Obama... Wright or Wrong," that you plan to deliver this Saturday. The brunt of the sermon asserts that, in his celebrated speech on race, Senator Obama set up a "moral equivalency" between his white grandmother and Reverend Wright. The sermon then proclaims that moral equivalency to be "false" and attacks Senator Obama both for his association with Reverend Wright and for the moral equivalency allegedly outlined in his speech. While the sermon calls Senator Obama's speech on race "eloquent," and "thought provoking," and while in the sermon you assure the congregation that Barack is "patriotic," such compliments come off either as "damning with faint praise" and "setting up for the kill."

I urge you to revise the sermon not only because I believe it is wrong and unfair -- about which reasonable people of course may disagree - but also because it has the potential to be so damaging and destructive to the cause of racial and religious harmony, when the prospect for meaningful improvement has never been greater. While certain television news commentators may prefer ratings over racial and religious progress, I hope theological and community leaders of every religion and race grasp the opportunity that Senator Obama has now created, acknowledge and give credit for it, and then build upon it -- rather than seek to tear it down.

Both Barack and the speech deserve no less. Let's look at both.

Senator Obama

Senator Obama never sought to run on the issues of "race," "religion," or "racial and religious harmony." He never sought to run as a black man. Instead, the Clinton campaign and certain television commentators chose to make the Obama candidacy about race and religion. Yet, however it reached this point, the Obama candidacy now could not be more important for blacks, Jews and indeed every American. Through his thoughts and words -- but mainly through his honesty and courage -- Barack has brought us all out of the shadows.

I know of no person -- not Dr. King, not any rabbi I have ever met, and certainly not any other politician -- who would go into an African American church -- Dr. King's Church -- on Martin Luther King Day and devote a significant portion of his speech to acknowledging and then decrying the continuing existence of anti-Semitism in sectors of the black community. That is precisely what Barack did last year. Some might make that speech at an AIPAC convention, but I know of none to do it to an all black congregation. Similarly, in my 51 years, I have heard many rabbis use the story of Passover to talk about religious intolerance against Jews; yet none has lectured on racial and religious intolerance within the Jewish community by forcing us to acknowledge, for example, that the elders at our seders still use derogatory yiddish words for African-Americans. I do not mean to suggest the "moral equivalence" of the language or to argue whether racism in the Jewish or other white communities is more or less prevalent or better or worse than anti-semitism in the black or other non-Jewish communities. They are all worthy of condemnation and most of us know it. But I know of no one -- let alone a politician in a presidential race -- other than Barack to so eschew self-interest and expediency by raising the harder side of the question to the less receptive audience.

And the character of the man and the importance of his candidacy were similarly reflected in his entire approach to that Tuesday speech in Constitutional Hall. There were more politically expedient ways to deal with the Rev. Wright mess -- the easiest would have been to stand on a stage surrounded by a General and a rabbi and perhaps a hispanic minister and to give a speech focused on the hate words and decrying -- in the most eloquent terms (as we know Barack can) -- just how wrong such language was and why. And ending there.

Why the heck continue with a speech about the underlying problem of racism that led 8500 African-Americans to cheer Reverend Wright in church? About the problem that leads to offensive statements by older Irish or Italian union members at Christmas dinners or Jewish elders at seders? Why give a speech on the history of race relations, applauding how far we have come but refusing to sugar coat how much further we have to go and assigning blame to us all? How could a politician do something that naive? Something that no matter how honest, how truthful, and how eloquent will of course leave so much for commentators and sermons to attack in the months ahead? Because any such speech -- particularly an honest and eloquent one -- on a problem that divides at every turn and with every word must necessarily leave so much for each "side" to attack. Each "side" always will attack the "moral equivalency" of any analysis, because that is how we got into this mess -- racial and religious divide -- in the first place. How could a politician be so naive to hope to shed light brightly on all and excuse none?

Because it was the right thing to do. And that is the man I have come to know and will always admire.

The Speech

So the decision to actually say something meaningful reflected the character of the man.

What did his words reflect?

First, can you imagine that the speech was written by Barack himself? That in a world of speech writers, media men and handlers of every sort, a candidate decides to address the American people on perhaps the most sensitive issue of our somewhat stained history and he picks up his own laptop and writes it himself to tell what he believes? That he taps out the most important speech of a presidential campaign and perhaps of most of the voters' lifetime on a Sunday and Monday night, after putting his two daughters to bed? (I emailed Barack Sunday night and he was writing the speech -- alone.) In thinking about the three remaining choices for leadership in America for the next 8 years, can you picture either Senator McCain or Senator Clinton writing any speech themselves? Or even thinking on their own so deeply about an issue? Even had the speech been flawed, can we afford to attack and find fault with such talented leadership?

But in fact the speech was far more than the thought-provoking diversion you describe in your sermon.

The speech as you recognized denounced in the strongest terms Reverend Wright's offensive words and hate speech; established (as it should not have had to do) that Barack of course loves this country as much as and is as patriotic as anyone; and demonstrated again (what I have long witnessed first-hand) that his support for Israel that is second to none. (In Barack's words: " [Reverend Wright's words] weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.").

And then it dealt with the the history and progress of race relations and the work that remains ahead. It offered NO moral equivalencies and it is unfair to struggle to find them for that was not the point of a sermon. Barack did not address whether Reverend Wright and the 8500 people who were cheering his words were equivalent, better or worse than racists (or in fact those who use yiddish epithets). For that was not the issue, nor should it have been. He had already denounced the offensive words and sentiments in the strongest terms. He had already explained his association with Rev. Wright and the Church:

"And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS."

Rather the point was that those who feel left out of the America dream and cheered Rev. Wright's words, or who cast blame on and harbor prejudice (in union halls or at seder tables ) against other religious or racial groups because they too have been left behind in pursuit of the American dream are all still part of this country and its fabric. As Barack put it: "they are a part of America, this country that I love." A faulty fabric indeed in a country he loves, with enough blame to go around for the deficiencies in the fabric. Barack shielded none from blame. But he proposed no equivalencies. He instead set out the problem of racial and religious prejudice on all sides that still exists in this country.

And in his honesty in so raising and in dealing with this issue, Barack took a huge leap for us all. Not just in his unmatched eloquence, but in his equally unmatched honesty and insight. A leap that we can and must build on if we are ever going to make progress on this issue. A leap that, as noted above, any could attack in a sermon -- but that all should instead applaud and build upon.

For Jewish leaders to find fault in a speech, in a man, and in a candidacy that has done so much on this issue -- and who uniquely has the talent, insight and leadership to do so much more -- means that we have chosen to divide when the opportunity to unite has never been closer.

That would be a shame. And it would be a missed opportunity that has taken us so long to tee up. For no gain.

I am happy to discuss this issue at any time.

All the best.

Howard Gutman