{"id":196644,"date":"2008-04-05T19:58:00","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T00:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/04\/05\/mark-penn-is-a-complete-asshole\/"},"modified":"2008-04-05T19:58:00","modified_gmt":"2008-04-06T00:58:00","slug":"mark-penn-is-a-complete-asshole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2008\/04\/05\/mark-penn-is-a-complete-asshole\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Penn is a Complete Asshole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that while Hillary Clinton was condemning the Columbia free trade pact, mark pen, in his capacity as CEO of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, was <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB120726769569388303.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news\">having meetings with representatives of the Columbian government<\/a> in order to lobby <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">for<\/span> the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Penn subsequently <a href=\"http:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/news\/2008\/04\/clinton_aide_sorry_for_trade_m.php\">apologized for this<\/a>, but the Change to Win union alliance is now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.changetowin.org\/for-the-media\/press-releases-and-statements\/mark-penn-has-to-go.html\">demanding that Penn be fired by the Clinton campaign<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br \/>Friday, April 4, 2008<\/p>\n<p>CONTACT: Greg Denier<br \/>Noreen Nielsen<br \/>(202) 721-0660<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 The following is a statement from Change to Win executive director Greg Tarpinian concerning the latest revelation that Hillary Clinton\u2019s chief campaign strategist Mark Penn met Monday with Colombia\u2019s ambassador regarding the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time for Senator Hillary Clinton to send her vaunted \u2018chief strategist\u2019 Mark Penn packing &#8212; back to his job consulting for union busting corporations and anti-labor governments for good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have questioned Penn\u2019s role in the Clinton campaign in the past for his representation of union busting employers like Cintas. At that time, Penn said there was a wall between him and his firm\u2019s representation of union busters. The latest revelation that Penn &#8212; whose firm represents the Colombian government in its effort to secure passage of a so-called free trade agreement &#8212; is actively involved in securing its passage in the middle of Senator Clinton\u2019s presidential campaign is outrageous. It also suggests that he has been playing a double role \u2013 advising the Senator on what to say to curry Democratic voters and advising the Colombian government on what to say to curry a majority of votes in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe vast majority of Americans do not believe that we should be granting preferential trade status to a government that coddles death squads that target union organizers. Colombia remains the most dangerous country in the world for union members, where more than 2,200 workers have been murdered since the 1980s by Colombian death squads for trying to form unions while the government has done nothing to effectively stop the murders. It is time for Penn to go.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A postscript to all this is that Columbia has now <a href=\"http:\/\/tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com\/2008\/04\/colombia_fires_mark_penn.php\">fired Burson-Marsteller Worldwide<\/a>, saying that, &#8220;The Colombian government considers this a lack of respect to Colombians, and finds this response unacceptable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bummer of a birth mark, Hal.<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img403.imageshack.us\/img403\/8051\/28346wsv5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that while Hillary Clinton was condemning the Columbia free trade pact, mark pen, in his capacity as CEO of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, was having meetings with representatives of the Columbian government in order to lobby for the agreement. Penn subsequently apologized for this, but the Change to Win union alliance is now demanding that &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[964,1016,977,1019,982],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-relations","category-international-commerce","category-presidential-campaign","category-schadenfreude","category-stupid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}