If you want to figure out the truth about the Clinton Campaign, you have to look beneath the surface.
The recent headline in The Huffington Post reading "Mark Penn Resigns From Clinton Camp" doesn't tell the whole tale, which is revealed farther down in the story. Penn has given up his position as Chief Strategist of the Clinton campaign, but as Clinton Campaign Manager Maggie Williams states, "Mark [Penn] and Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc. [the marketing firm of which Mark Penn is lead partner] will continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign."
Mark Penn may have lost his Chief Strategist title, but he continues to be a political advisor to Hillary Clinton. Penn, Schoen & Berland will continue to be paid by Hillary for "polling and advise" after having already collected $10,800,000 from the Clinton Campaign (i.e. Hillary has paid Penn and his firm close to 10% of the contributions she's received from her donors).
In other words, this all looks like a sleight of hand, when its really business as usual with Clinton. And when it comes to business as usual involving ultimate Washington insider Mark Penn, it means advising Hillary Clinton, even while Penn earns millions heading a communications, lobbying, and "crisis management" firm whose other clients include:
•Military mercenary firm Blackwater USA, for whom it coached Blackwater CEO Eric Prince for his Congressional testimony about Blackwater's killing of Iraqi civilians.
•Ahmen Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile who did as much as anyone to promote America going to war in Iraq and was responsible for providing the phony intelligence from "Curveball".
•ATT in it lobbying activities for immunity from assisting the Bush administration in its warrentless wiretapping program.
•New Era Cap (and many other corporations) in its efforts to fight unionization.
•Proctor and Gamble is its campaign to defend itself from charges that Olestra causes anal leakage.
Those are just a few of a long list of horribles represented by Penn's firm. See Ari Berman's article in The Nation for many more:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/berman
Until now, Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's Communications Director has defended Penn for working simultaneously for such clients and for the Clinton Campaign, saying "I don't think it reflects on her at all. Mark's work away from the campaign is Mark's work, and his campaign work is separate from that".
It all became too much for the Hillary only when Penn was caught last week lobbying on behalf of Columbia--where labor leaders are routinely murdered by paramilitary death squads--for a free trade agreement with the United States which lacks strong labor and environmental protections.
So now Mark Penn has resigned from the Clinton campaign. Only he hasn't. Penn and his firm continue to get paid by the Clinton campaign for polling and advice.
Penn represents the very worst kind of Washington insider who simultaneously takes millions from Democratic politicians and lobbies for some of the worst special interests in the world. This is exactly the kind of old politics that typifies the Clintons and John McCain, which John Edwards and Barack Obama have vigorously criticized.
What kind of favors does Mark Penn hope to gain for his special interest clients if Hillary Clinton becomes President?