Anatomy of a Hit Piece: The Chicago Tribune's Hit On Rahm Emanuel

[berni_mccoy]

I think it's a shame people here at DU aren't more critical of these kinds of hit-pieces against Obama and his team.

I think it's even more of a shame that this clump of words that isn't worth printing on toilette paper is on the front page of DU.

If you want to read this crap for yourself, the article link is: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/chi-rahm-emanuel-profit-26-mar26,0,5682373.story?page=1

Here's some flawed logic that's turned into sensationalized facts from the article itself, some right in the very lead or kicker:

The article is titled "Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant".

Right off the bat, the title isn't even correct. On the second page, buried deep within:

Financial disclosure statements that are required of U.S. House members show Emanuel made at least $320,000 from his time at Freddie Mac. Two years after leaving the firm, Emanuel reported an additional sale of Freddie Mac stock worth between $100,001 and $250,000. The document did not detail whether he profited from the sale.

The bottom line is they don't know if he made money at Freddie Mac or not and exactly how much he made. If he lost money on the stock, that would certainly negate money he earned from a board salary (if he did receive one, but they don't know since they haven't seen all the records). That's ok, they still present it as fact that Emanuel profited from his short stay.

They also say he had a "free ride" but they don't know what his contribution actually was. They just know he didn't chair any committees.

Next is the positioning of the facts next to the current financial crisis:

Before its portfolio of bad loans helped trigger the current housing crisis, mortgage giant Freddie Mac was the focus of a major accounting scandal that led to a management shake-up, huge fines and scalding condemnation of passive directors by a top federal regulator.

First, the bad loans were loaned out since the Bush Administration relaxed oversight and loan policy, not during Emanuel's time on the board. Oh, wait, when did Emanuel serve on the board? You wouldn't know unless you dug into the article:

Yet proxy statements that detailed committee assignments showed none for Emanuel, Free or Ickes during the time they served in 2000 or 2001. Most other directors carried two committee assignments each.

Ohhh, he served on the board *before* Bush took office, before Bush loaded it with his own cronies who led us to our current situation.

And if Emanuel didn't actually serve on any committees, he couldn't really have affected policy that led to our situation now could he? But this piece-of-crap hit-piece is full of contradictions like this. For example, the piece tries to show that Emanuel had a conflict of interest after leaving Freddie Mac (in 2001) and becoming a Representative (in 2003). Here's how they frame it:

Then-Freddie Mac CEO Leland Brendsel also hosted a fundraising lunch for Emanuel's 2002 campaign that netted $9,500 from top company executives. Brendsel was later ousted in the accounting scandal.

Federal campaign records show that Emanuel received $25,000 from donors with ties to Freddie Mac in the 2002 campaign cycle, more than twice the amount collected that election by any other candidate for the U.S. House or Senate.

But I will give this to the 'authors' of this piece. They at least reported that Emanuel had the integrity to recuse himself from Congressional issues involving Freddie Mac... in the very last sentence of the article (which most people won't read by the time they get pissed off by the first 2 paragraphs).

Oh well, I guess I should just get outraged at the title and first two paragraphs like everyone else and not read the entire article next time. :sarcasm:

[babylonsister]

1. Rec'd. Thank you! nt

[monmouth]

2. Trolls have been posting this quite a few times....n/t

[redqueen]

3. Thanks.

I hope more people catch on to this game. Then again, if they haven't by now...

[MannyGoldstein]

4. So He Didn't Make More Than $320,000+ For Doing Nothing?

Is that what you're saying?

[berni_mccoy]

5. Do you know for a fact he did nothing? You may want to provide your evidence to the authors

because they have none.

[avaistheone1]

7. Well what did Rahm do that was deserving of $320,000 + ?

...in his brief stint?

[wyldwolf]

8. who makes that determination? Certainly not you or I

[ArchieStone1]

19. The following paragraph is troubling

"On Emanuel's watch, the board was told by executives of a plan to use accounting tricks to mislead shareholders about outsize profits the government-chartered firm was then reaping from risky investments. The goal was to push earnings onto the books in future years, ensuring that Freddie Mac would appear profitable on paper for years to come and helping maximize annual bonuses for company brass."

[wyldwolf]

20. yes, but that has nada to do with the question you posed.

:shrug:

[flpoljunkie]

12. Rahm's stint is a blatant and sickening example of Wall Street's ties to Washington.

And why we need public financing of federal campaigns. Although Dick Durbin is set to reintroduce his public financing bill, I am not holding my breath until it comes to the floor for a vote.

We voted for change in Washington. Will real change be blocked, not only by Republicans, but our own party?

[berni_mccoy]

13. You are falling for fail

[joeglow3]

14. Why are Corporate Boards corrupt and overpaid until...

...someone we like is sitting on said board and making HUGE sums of money? Wrong is wrong. Frankly, I am scared by people who are so quick to sell out their principles.

Upon edit: I do not know enough about this to form an opinion. All I know is that he sat on a board of a company that had some pretty crappy business models and make a hell of a lot more money than anyone deserves (as do all board members of all companies).

[Zodiak]

22. Read my post below

Sometimes a seemingly well-reasoned analysis is just a hack job dressed up to look nice, and it cuts both ways.

I presonally would like there to be a lot more intellectual honesty in the media as well as around here. Lies and distortions get us nowhere, and do way more damage than good. How can anyone have a reasoned discussion when both sides do not even have the integrity to tell the truth?

[flpoljunkie]

16. No, my eyes are wide open on how Washington works. It will not change if we don't demand change.

[lamp_shade]

6. Thank you. I hope those "concerned" about this read your post. n/t

[acmavm]

9. This whole adminstration is jam packed with lobbyists, corporatists,

Goldman Sachs personnel, and people who have made lots of bucks off our current mess.

And that's as plain as it gets.

[berni_mccoy]

11. You don't read, do you?

[acmavm]

18. Of course I do. That's why I know who's in his administration.

[No Elephants]

10. Nice work. Now to recommend. Amazing how many loyal Democrats here fall for this kind of thing

[joeglow3]

15. Does it matter if he made money on the stock?

Is behavior only questionable if the stock happens to go up? Using your logic, you cannot be mad at ANY corporate leader, as almost all of their stock is under water. The price of the stock at exercise price has NO bearing. The granting of the options/stock SHOULD be looked at.

[PopSixSquish]

17. Ok, What has Rahm Done Now to Piss Somebody Off?

This is all old news. Almost every biography of the current COS mentions Freddie Mac and that he worked for Wasserstein Perella after leaving the Clinton White House. And all of this is in the disclosures required of Congress. And it's been mentioned in the Trib articles about him before I'm sure.

I know he's the bogeyman for lots of folks on this board and if you don't like him, you don't like him. But methinks the timing of this article is suspect given that the Obama administration is beginning show that it might just be serious about cracking down on the financial industry and Wall Street.

The whole thing smacks of "yeah, we suck but you suck more"

If the phrase "whoopty-fucking-do" wasn't already invented, we'd have to do so for this one...

[Zodiak]

21. Three points of contention with your analysis

I read your analysis before I read the article, so when I read the article, the points you made in this analysis came to mind.

1. You did not have to dig very far to find out when Rahm served on the board, it is mentioned in the 7th paragraph, still on the first page. The article does not attempt to hide those dates at all. It also states that the problems started long before Bush....so confining the blame to only those years after Rahm left is not consistent with the article nor the facts on the ground.

2. You also said that the article stated that Rahm did not serve as chair of any committees when in fact, the article says he did not serve on any committees, period. That is perhaps why Rahm is being accused of doing nothing...one can forgive not serving as chair on a committee, but on no committee at all? Also, the article used a statement from a member of Freddy who basically said that no Presidential appointee did anything useful for the company...another source of the accusation. So this is not exactly an unsourced bit of info, and you misrepresented what is stated in the article.

3. You also argue that Rahm did not serve on the board when the accounting scandal happened, but that is not what the article states. The article states that Rahm was involved in the accounting scandal as a beneficiary after he left Freddie. He was a congressman at the time, and the company was funneling money to him through contributions. So yeah, Rahm was indeed tied up in the accounting scandal.

Please correct these mistakes because without these corrections, your hit piece loses credibility for intellectual dishonesty, the chief accusation you launched in this piece.

[berni_mccoy]

24. No contention at all

1. I never said they were 'hiding' the date. Usually the Who, What, Where and When are discussed right up front. Not 7 paragraphs into a sensational article. 7 paragraphs deep is burying an essential fact.

2. The article says he wasn't 'assigned' to any committees. That doesn't mean he didn't work for them. There is no documentation to show that he did nothing or didn't provide services, as the article supposes.

3. I made no such argument.

[gordianot]

23. So he got to take a brief ride on the gravy train.

There is a privileged class in this country. No matter what the economic system you will have a privileged class based variously on inherited wealth (also lack of wealth helps with some), education, murder, criminal activity, or general merit.

The absolute criminals of the last administration appear to have a free get out of jail card. In some ways it is easier to understand profit taking in the thousands like Emanuel (which is probably legal) than the literal millions and billions which fell down the rabbit hole with Bush and the Republicans.


If he only made a few thousand that does endorse Emmanuel's political savvy.

[hughee99]

25. Is it better to do nothing for $325K or to be involved

in any way with driving the corporation into financial ruin. At least if he did nothing for the money, you can't blame him for the fiasco. Since the stock jumped from roughly 41 when he started there to around 60 at the time he left, I'm not exactly sure how he would have lost money on Freddy Mac stock.

[berni_mccoy]

26. His time at Freddie Mac had nothing to do with the current crisis. That's the point.

Bush caused this crisis. Plain and simple. And yet, people here at DU are believing otherwise.

[hughee99]

28. As has already been said...

They were significantly misreporting earnings while he was there. As opposed to overreporting earnings, they were intentionally underreporting earnings (by about 5 Billion dollars) so they could report them later (making Freddie look stronger than it actually was). This happened while Emanuel was there, and while not the cause of the current crises, these sorts of financial shennanigans certainly don't make oversight any easier for the people who were supposed to be keeping an eye on Freddie.

I still haven't figured out how he could have lost money on Freddie stock either.

I'm not blaming Emanuel for the current crisis, but from a "bad press" perspective, it's better to have the press calling this a no show job, then to be trying to blame him for all the ills of Freddie Mac. As far as a hit-piece goes, and I agree that it is one, it could have been worse.

[firedupdem]

27. Rec'd! Thanks for this! n/t

[Cha]

29. Thanks for reading it all and

analyzing for us, too, bernie. Much appreciated!