Collusion or Conflict of Interests?

Mark Penn, Hillary's chief strategist met with Colombian officials to discuss a Colombian free-trade pact that Hillary opposes. Penn met the officials as part of his lobbying firm, Burton-Marsteller, not as a Clinton representative. I love how they're so cynical in the Clinton camp that they can claim with a straight face that a lobbyist working as an independent contractor for a campaign, can lobby against the interest of that campaign and that it's not a conflict of interest. What's more ridiculous is that Penn didn't even try to hide it; he just went and met with Colombian ambassador publicly. Above board is the new under the table.

This kind of situation begs one to wonder whether this is even a conflict of interest for Hillary or ultimately beneficial. Free-trade pacts are hugely economically beneficial (in the short- term to the U.S.), but lefty democrats and labor unions hate them because they promote human rights abuses in the countries where they go through and they ship even more American jobs overseas (witness NAFTA, everybody's favorite Clintonian Republicrat legislation from the 90's!). In order to bolster intra-party support, Clinton can't openly support the Colombian free trade pact, but she can keep the door open through her greasy, lobbyist director of PR, Mark Penn.

This free-trade pact, which Bush is pushing to go to Congress next week despite opposition from congressional democrats and labor unions, would ensure that that war-on-drugs money keeps rolling in and would expand the power that multi-national corporations like Coca-Cola (which has already racked up a tidy number of human rights abuses) have in the Colombia.