You be the judge. I don't like military juntas. Not Somoza's, not this one. The GOP seems more amenable to them than I am. Iran-Contra and all that earlier stuff. Now it's Norm Coleman and the generals.
Here's the reporting, via an excerpt from PiPress picking up Fred Frommer's Tuesday, May 13, AP wirefeed.
WASHINGTON—The Minnesota DFL called Tuesday on Sen. Norm Coleman to divest campaign donations made by employees of a firm that lobbied for Myanmar's junta, three days after the firm's chief executive resigned as coordinator of this year's Republican National Convention.
At issue are donations from [lobbyist] DCI Group's political action committee and employees. The firm's chief executive, Doug Goodyear, who had been picked by John McCain's campaign to run the convention in St. Paul, resigned from that role Saturday after Newsweek reported that the company was paid $348,000 in 2002 and 2003 to represent Myanmar's military government.
The DFL urged Coleman, R-Minn., to donate to charity the roughly $10,000 in donations made to his campaign and leadership PAC by DCI's PAC and employees, including Goodyear.
"Senator Coleman should rid himself of tainted contributions from DCI, a lobbying firm that has represented an oppressive regime that is denying vital assistance to its own people during a time of crisis," DFL Party Chairman Brian Melendez said.
He also called on Coleman to reveal what he discussed with DCI lobbyists, including whether the firm lobbied him on behalf of Myanmar's junta.
Justice Department records show DCI signed a contract to work to "improve relations between the United States and Myanmar" and to act as the junta's public relations agent in Washington.
In a statement, Coleman campaign spokesman Tom Erickson referenced an improper $875,000 transfer from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in New York City to the liberal radio network Air America when Franken was a star host there. That transfer prompted a probe by the city's Department of Investigation.
"Franken continues to remain silent about his role in this matter," Erickson said. "As for returning a legal contribution from an individual and company engaged in legal activities, of course we will not be returning the contribution."
"Norm Coleman took nearly $10,000 from a firm representing an oppressive military regime," Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr said in an e-mail. "He won't return the money, and he won't say what he did in return for it. That's shocking. And if the best he can do by way of explaining this stunning and suspicious behavior is to recycle long-discredited smears, Minnesotans are going to start to wonder if there isn't an even uglier story soon to come."
I only wonder, did the junta first seek Elwyn Tinklenberg as its lobbyist, and get turned down and only then turn to these other folks?
Probably not.
The likelihood of the junta getting federal highway funds is so remote anyway, that the Tinklenberg Group probably was not even viewed as a player.
But -- the article suggests the big question is whether there was any quid pro quo.
If that has legs, Norm's got some explaining to do. McCain wants distance and deniability. Norm wants to keep the cash.
And that lame response, it's not trying to add apples and oranges, it's responding to concern about ties to a reprehensible and represive junta; vs. talk radio.
Yes, talk radio is awful. Yes the entire phenomenon, Rush and Jason Lewis especially, is very, very strange and distasteful.
But even on the GOP side of that spectrum and at its vilest, it's not the same as having ties of any nature to a junta or to those promoting the junta as just fine.
________UPDATE________
As a thought I had when reading the reporting, I should have said this in the post and not as an update. However, this is Franken people critical of Coleman's junta money ties then Coleman's people critical of Franken's talk radio money ties. In all of that one thing is missing. Jack Nelson Pallmeyer is clear on his views of how our nation should relate to other nations of the world, ones less wealthy, and it is clearly a view that is 180 degrees away from taking cash from represive junta affiliates. Jack is squeaky clean in his money affairs, and is an exemplary person. We should all strive to be as good as Jack. Yet Coleman gets press coverage, Franken gets press coverage, and because Jack Nelson Pallmeyer IS so squeaky clean, he gets no attention. AND THE DFL ENDORSEMENT CONVENTION FOR ITS SENATE CANDIDATE HAS NOT YET BEEN HELD. FRANKEN IS HOPEFUL, NOT ANOINTED OR APPOINTED. BE PROGRESSIVE. THINK JACK.