Published: October 08, 2008 03:08 pm            

Randy Sheridan: Digging for dirt or just presenting the facts?

As it is with most political campaigns, as the election rolls near, there is a tendency for a little mudslinging to go on back and forth.

Candidates trade barbs trying to strike a nerve and put their opponent on the defensive or at least get a reaction from the public.

Opposition research is not anything new. It’s just that the technology available today makes it a little easier to dig for the dirt, or is it just locating the facts and bringing it to the public’s attention? Does the public have a right to know certain things about a candidate’s character?

Or about his associations?

Having been on both sides of the fence, I think verifiable facts are in order. The problem often is that people can just recklessly throw out information, and people will come to believe it as factual whether it is or not.

Great damage can be done to an individual’s reputation that can be irreparable. Running for public office is akin to placing a big, colorful bulls-eye on your back and encouraging any and everyone to take their best shot. And to a candidate’s disbelief, there are people, or I should say scoundrels and low-lifes, out there who will make stuff up!

Journalists have an obligation to you the reader to do their best to verify and support the facts when writing about a public servant. At one time in the industry, that was standard practice.

Not so any more.

With that said, what I’m about to write about is actually common knowledge. That is perhaps what is the most troubling about the whole ordeal.

This is not dirt, rather the facts about one’s associations. My dad used to tell me that other people would judge me by the company I kept. And so it is.

With the recent vicious attacks on vice-presidential candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, we’ve been reminded of just how ruthless and mean-spirited a heard of liberals can be.

A small army of lawyers headed to Alaska several weeks ago, not to dig for gold but for any dirt they could find on Palin. When they couldn’t dig anything up, they began to manufacture dirt, or should I say 100 percent pure manure.

They began by talking to her former associates, co-workers, classmates and anybody who would talk to them. Of course most Alaskans didn’t want anything to do with them and their dirt-digging druids. Yet, as a political figure, you are going to make a few enemies along the way. Sarah Palin is no exception to that.

No sooner had they got there than the pipeline of nuclear-waste proportions was being funneled to the lower 48. If only the liberals could get a real pipeline headed in this direction as fast!

Never mind the despicable assailants. Palin has withstood the Democrats vile blows, one reckless assault after another. Wow! What a tough vice president she will make.

She hit a grand slam in her debate with Joe “Bigmouth” Biden and has repeatedly displayed her strength and character to America in the short while we’ve known her.

The mind-boggling thing comes from the other side of the aisle. Just on the matter of our recent economic train wreck, look at whose fingerprints are all over this thing. And this is all factual stuff that most of the mainstream media simply ignores.

Here is a quick look into three former Fannie Mae executives who have greatly aided the downfall of Wall Street.

Franklin Raines was chairman and chief executive officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae’s accounting activities.

At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, “Raines, who long defended the company’s accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn’t proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that ‘mistakes were made’” and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. Yeah, right!

News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company’s books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years. Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by a whopping $9 billion.

Raines left with a golden parachute valued at $240 million in benefits! The government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear. Government noted, “The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over 20 accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public.”

The notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.

These charges were made in 2006. The court ordered Raines to return $50 million dollars he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae profits.

Tim Howard was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae. Howard “was a strong internal proponent” of using accounting strategies that would ensure a “stable pattern of earnings” at Fannie.

In everyday English, he was cooking the books. The government investigation determined that, “Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae.”

In June 2006, the Justice Department’s investigations of the two former Fannie Mae executives revealed they “lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant’s income statement to achieve management pay bonuses.”

Investigations by federal regulators and the company’s board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard’s golden parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson is a former executive at Lehman Brothers who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. Taking a brief look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, you’ll see some interesting things about Johnson.

Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson’s 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million. Why would you hide this information if it was all legal and above board?

Johnson is under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson’s golden parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

Where are these guys now? Hmm, Franklin Raines works for the Obama campaign as chief economic adviser. Tim Howard is also a chief economic adviser to Obama. And Jim Johnson was hired as a senior Obama finance adviser and was selected to run Obama’s vice-presidential search committee.

I wonder where these guys would fit into an Obama administration. Well, you can rest assured that, if Obama’s elected, they will be close by, instead of where they should be — in an orange jumpsuit with the rest of the crooks from Wall Street who have selfishly raped our economy.

And I’m not digging for dirt sir. These are plain and simple, just the facts!



Randy Sheridan of Burleson is a speaker, counselor and mediator. He can be reached at drsheridan@aol.com.

        

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