Letters to the Editor
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Obama's 'Stretches Of Truth'
First, there was the Exelon "embellishment".
Now there is this "embellishment":
After weeks of arduous negotiations, on April 6, 2006, a bipartisan group of senators burst out of the "President's Room," just off the Senate chamber, with a deal on new immigration policy.
As the half-dozen senators -- including John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) -- headed to announce their plan, they met Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who made a request common when Capitol Hill news conferences are in the offing: "Hey, guys, can I come along?" And when Obama went before the microphones, he was generous with his list of senators to congratulate -- a list that included himself.
"I want to cite Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback, Mel Martinez, Ken Salazar, myself, Dick Durbin, Joe Lieberman . . . who've actually had to wake up early to try to hammer this stuff out," he said.
To Senate staff members, who had been arriving for 7 a.m. negotiating sessions for weeks, it was a galling moment. Those morning sessions had attracted just three to four senators a side, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) recalled, each deeply involved in the issue. Obama was not one of them. But in a presidential contest involving three sitting senators, embellishment of legislative records may be an inevitability, Specter said with a shrug. (Washington Post, 3/24/08)
And this: $1,745,161 in campaign contributions from subprime mortgage lenders.
Lehman Brothers $274,147
Morgan Stanley $190,026
Goldman Sachs $474,428
GMAC $3,400
Countrywide $13,100
Washington Mutual $10,750
Citigroup $199,860
Morgan Stanley $210,550
Centex $1,350
Goldman Sachs $367,550
SOURCE: Center for Responsive Politics donor search