Saturday, April 11, 2009

An example of everything that's wrong with our politics

Dick Gephardt, former House Democratic Leader, House Majority Leader and House Minority Leader is President and CEO of the Gephardt Group, a Washington lobbying firm that "provides strategic advice to clients on issues before the House, Senate and Executive Branch in the federal government."

The Gephardt Group just hired Dennis Hastert and his lobbying firm, Dickstein Shapiro, to assist on a $35,000-per-month contract for the government of Turkey.

Hastert used to be the Republican Speaker of the House.

"One issue Hastert and others lobbying for Turkey will have to deal with this year is a congressional resolution that defines the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 1900s as genocide. The Turkish government opposes the resolution and has lobbied against it every time it has been introduced in Congress.

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama explicitly said the killing was genocide. But on a recent trip to Turkey, President Obama only said he stood by those prior statements. He did not use the word “genocide,” angering some Armenian-American activists."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/hastert-contracted-to-lobby-for-turkey-2009-04-10.html

When is the slaughter of millions of Armenians not genocide?

When you hire the former Democratic and Republican House leaders to lobby together on your behalf.

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