[UPDATE: Obama has now distanced himself from this memo. See Anna’s post from 6/18/07 for more details]
Today’s New York Times has a story (thanks, anonymous tipster) about the Clintons’ recent financial disclosures, and their decision to liquidate all their stock holdings. Fine; makes sense.
But what’s really remarkable about this story is the questionable anonymous memo issued by the Obama campaign in response to the Clinton disclosures. The memo amounts attempts to smear Clinton as being too friendly to India, and is laced with xenophobic sentiments and insinuations.It starts with the title of the memo itself: “HILLARY CLINTON (D-PUNJAB)’S PERSONAL FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL TIES TO INDIA.”
And it goes downhill from there. Obama’s campaign memo (read the whole thing) accuses the Clintons of a number of things:
They start out by stating that the Clintons own stock in an Indian company called “Easy Bill,” which is actually just a company that allows Indians to automate their bill payments. This is not a BPO type company, but a service for Indians within India, so one wonders why is this even included.
They then go after the Clintons for accepting speaking fees from Cisco (this is Bill) and campaign donations from Cisco employees (Hillary). Cisco may be more guilty than many software companies of dumping its U.S. based workforce in favor of cheaper Indian engineers in the early 2000s, but it’s nevertheless the case that U.S. high tech job market is in pretty good shape again overall — outsourcing hasn’t created the apocalypse that was feared. So this accusation is a little bit strange: I doubt that many Americans outside of Silicon Valley actively think of Cisco as an evil outsourcer.
They find fault with Clinton’s relationship with the hotel tycoon Sant Singh Chatwal, whose family has been discussed many times here at SM. Chatwal has organized two big fundraisers for her, netting a total of $1 million in donations. Chatwal also started “Indian Americans for Hillary 2008,” which ought not to be an issue (doesn’t Obama have South Asians for Obama hosted on his campaign website?). The Obama campaign’s memo underlines Chatwal’s various legal difficulties, general financial shadiness, and pending court cases, to make it all look like some kind of shady back-room deal. This accusation seems strange to me, since the fundraisers are completely legit, even if Chatwal himself is in trouble.
Finally, they quote Lou “Keep Em Out” Dobbs several times, as he mocked Hillary in 2004 for saying that “outsourcing cuts both ways” (as in, it creates some American jobs as well as sending others overseas). In fact, though her particular example of “10 new jobs in Buffalo” was a bit weak, Hillary was right about this: companies like TCS are opening up a number of U.S. offices, and more generally, the greater efficiency enabled by BPO helps keep American companies competitive on a global scale, and has, in my view, actually helped the U.S. economy. (All of Hillary’s quotes about “outsourcing cutting both ways” are from the 2004 campaign season, incidentally.)
So now the question is, how aware was Obama himself of the contents of this “anonymous” memo? If Obama doesn’t distance himself from the memo immediately, this macaca is going to be sending his moolah to “Hillary Clinton, D-Punjab.”
[UPDATE: Obama has now distanced himself from this memo. See Anna’s post from 6/18]
Out with Obama! I want this guy. 🙂
Not that I care too much. I did like Obama initially, but kicked myself later. He is just another politician, same bogus concerns, same cynicism. Probably worse because he is such a refined liar that actually managed to convince people he was not one. For some time.
Most do not take it that way. A lot of desis, except the far left, see this as an intimate connection. It is the one chance desh has had in a long time to rise out of abject poverty.
Pravin says:
What, exactly, is your threshold for “anti-Indian sentiment”? Did you see the parts of the memo that insinuate that there is something wrong, per se, about raising a lot of money from Indian-Americans? And about participating in the Senate India Caucus? This has nothing to do with the merits of the offshoring debate.
Look, I strongly support Obama and am equally concerned about Hillary’s views, past and present, on the Iraq war. But let’s call a spade a spade.
but don’t you have a crush on him?
S-p-e-c-i-a-l interest groups funding candidates constrain the candidate’s ability to move against the SIG’s pet issues. Obama wants an Education based offensive against the losses to India Inc. and he sounds credible compared with Hill’s chicken vindaloo deals.
The memo doesn’t insinuate that there’s anything wrong with raising money from Indian-Americans. It does say that there is something wrong with raising money from possible crooks who happen to be Indian-American. Obama has faced the same criticism for his dealings with Rezko, so it’s only fair for his campaign to try and get the media to give equal coverage of Hillary’s connections with Chatwal.
SD, For me, Allen saying stuff like “Welcome to Virginia” or some racist saying “go back to where you are from” is anti Indian sentiment. It is a valid concern when politicians get a lot of money from foreign interests. I hate the way AIPAC and Israel influence American politics. Yes, Joe Lieberman should be called the Senator from Israel because he seems more passionate about that area than many issues important to Americans. Sometimes when I see politicans stump for foreign interests, I wonder if they do it because they genuinely think it’s good for the country, or they have a rapport with the folk from that country and capitalize on that for donations.
If Obama people think Hillary’s financial interests in India could have an influence on her policies, then they can target it. ANd if they hit below the belt, that is politics for you. I am not endorsing this memo’s tone or the points laid out in the memo. But I have seen worse. THis is nothing compared to Hillary’s DLC friends (and incidentally one of Obama’s key campaign guys was part of this terrible ad) targeting Howard Dean and putting out tasteless ads conflating him with Osama Bin Laden. Like I said, I am skeptical of Obama’s preachiness. I think he should stress positive GOVERNING over positive campaigning as his selling point because he will always look like a hypocrite when the inevitable dirty campaigning takes place as it did in this case.
Iraq war is not some forgotten thing 5 years ago. It is a good indication of how one will govern in the future. Hillary has shown NO ABILITY TO LEARN FROM HER MISTAKE AND NO LEADERSHIP in inspiring others to put a check on Bush’s misadventures. HIllary was MIA in 2004 and 2006 elections when it came to giving significant support to politicians who were willing to take on Bush’s policies because she was afraid that she might risk looking moderate in the 2008 politicians. She put herself over the country. If she is a target of dirty tricks, then she doesnt get my smypathy because she and her kind have passively let progressive democrats get smeared over the last 8 years. Leadership ability is more important to me than an ideological checklist. LBJ got some civil rights legislation pushed through better than some average liberal President would have been able to achieve. Sometimes I wonder if certain ambitious DEmocrats just wish for Bush to keep fucking up spectacularly so they can win the next elections easily.
Prof. Singh:
“… the whole point of the memo is to whip up a hysterical response from readers.â€
I agree with your take on the memo from Sen. Obama’s campaign. The memo explicitly advances the argument that Sen. Clinton’s policies serve to advance India’s interests at the expense of America’s. If that was the extent of its argument, I wouldn’t be as troubled as I am: That sort of thing—albeit inaccurate in my view—is characteristic of the rough-and-tumble nature of campaign politics in most modern democracies. Btw, I would be entirely untroubled if the debate focused on the benefits (or lack of such) of outsourcing for America—that’s an entirely legitimate issue for Americans to argue over.
What I find entirely troublesome is the implicit argument of this memo that Sen. Clinton’s alleged ‘advancement of Indian interests’ has been bought and paid-for by Indian-American campaign donations—thus making Indian-American’s allegiance to the U.S. suspect. This reading is buttressed by the fact that the memo does not focus on Indian-Americans involved in outsourcing, but mentions even those like Mr. Mittal, someone who is not especially prominent in the outsourcing business. Indeed, Mr. Mittal is well-known for his reluctance to do business in India (though that reluctance seems to have diminished somewhat, of late). Much the same is true I suspect of most of the people who attended that fundraiser.
The memo seeks to tar all Indian-American support of Sen. Clinton. Even more, it seeks to rubbish any involvement by Sen. Clinton in any aspect of the relationship between India and America. How else to account for the memo’s citation of the fact that some Indian-American were involved (via USINPAC) in setting up the Senate India Caucus as well as Sen. Clinton’s role in the Caucus—in itself—is thought something disreputable?
Further, as part of it ‘j’accuse’, the memo states the following: Roll Call reported, “The goals of the caucus, which already has 31 members, include increasing trade with India and improving security against global terrorism.†Sen. Clinton said, “It is imperative that the Unites States do everything possible to reach out to India. This Caucus is dedicated to expanding areas of agreement with India and engaging in a candid dialogue of differences.â€
Apparently, any sort of engagement with India is suspect—forget about expanding trade (we all know that’s treasonous), even cooperation against global terrorism is frowned on by the author(s) of the memo!
Regards, Kumar
58 “that Sen. Clinton’s alleged ‘advancement of Indian interests’ has been bought and paid-for by Indian-American campaign donations”
But it has been bought. It is 100% true, there is no need for “alleged”. Have you ever been to any SAJA meetings on Outsourcing ? The number of USINPAC lobbyists on the panel, their former association with Bill, their current association with Hillary, large dollar figures, all are very open about it. There is absolutely to secrecy in that Hillary is VERY cozy with India Inc.
Are you saying just like that one fine day Hillary & Bill decided to stick their neck out for India ? It has been very pre-meditated, very open and very decisive from Bill’s time, nothing random about it.
I was even at the meeting at Columbia Uni where that Indian embassy chief was asked, Sir why is our Indian government not buying lobbyists for placing op-eds in newspapers on behalf of India Inc’s business interests ? The reply was very telling – they are very much buying lobbyists, they are affiliated with Hillary & this Tom Friedman in a very big way. What you see being revealed ie. this $50,000 donation – this is all small fish. In the background, lots of India Inc’s money is sloshing in Hillary’s campaign.
“Mr. Mittal, someone who is not especially prominent in the outsourcing business”
Ha ha! Dude, Mister Mittal does not have to personally do outsourcing business. Its all about connections. He knows the creme-de-la-creme of India Inc on first name basis. It is a very big incestuous circle. See, you should start reading the sleazy socialist Indian press, especially the rags put out by the left – they will give you all sorts of nasty info about whose family is married to who and how palms are greased in India Inc’s rise to prosperity. It is not clean at all, I assure you. But yes, everybody loves 8% growth, whether Indian or American.
This Obama is only worried because they are not giving him even a small slice of the cake, so he is making all sorts of noise.
It’s all the more interesting to me that Barack would do this. It really does appear that the campaign is implying that dealing with companies that have ties to India is somehow more shameful than receiving donations from companies conducting their business elsewhere. I, as a white American, do not get the immediate US hostility to desi. It’s okay for a candidate to receive money from a corporation like, say Wal-Mart, which has contributed to a transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas, and recently Chinese firms have been implicated in everything from the pet food scandal to using lead paint on toys (now I have to go take my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine toys away from him and wait 8 weeks for replacements to arrive).
Also, more interestingly, Obama’s accepted money from both Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. Citigroup is the single largest foreign investor in the India financial sector and Morgan Stanley is one of the largest investment firms in India.
Now that this has been released I’ve lost a lot of respect for Barack.
Why was he on a pedestal in the first place? Other than having a gift for making great speeches – what else has he got going for him? I kinda of dismissed him as a contender (for my vote) when he didn’t distance himself from those nasty comments made by ……gosh, his name has escaped me…you know, that music producer.
But if we were just talking about dissing the Desis, didn’t Hillary make some kinda of convience store joke a while ago that pertrubed many brown folk?
In anycase, Hillary in ’08!!!
We talked about it a little bit, but not in depth.
As for the Dems take the brown vote for granted, does anyone have info on voting stats? I know my sample group of desis is not representative, but I would say folks are pretty evenly split between voting Republican and voting Democratic. On very rare occasions their votes are dependent on a candidate’s policy towards India, but generally that is not a huge factor.
This is relatively disheartening. Not that I think Clinton is a bastion of brown good-will, but I’m tired of India begin conjured up as the big “outsourcing” bogeyman. I think the most immediate impact on ABDs is that, given that many Americans can’t seem to understand that ABDs are also Americans, we tend to experience the fallout of people’s attitudes towards India here in the U.S. In a less convoluted manner, what I mean is that if someone is pissed about outsourcing and thinks it’s all about India, I am more likely to be harassed by that person (even though I have NOTHING to do with it) here on the streets than I would be if public fervor wasn’t as whipped up about it. Just my opinion.
Right on. India Inc should give some money to BO and the noise will probably go away. But that is equating BO with Jessi and Al right?
Why so much noise?. I think Obama would come up with something like how this is not against Indian-Americans / even India / just about saving jobs in US and how he likes Gandhi and “Indian curry” or how he replied in the debate that he would take out Osama if found in Pakistan and then everyone would be happy. 🙂
Indian Americans should spread their dough “liberally” and not just on one candidate.
I never got the whole outsourcing tech support to India griping. If I remember correctly, tech support has sucked for quite a while, even before outsourcing became the norm. I think it is just convenient to blame Indians. Hell, all they have to do is call COMCAST tech support, many of who are in the US, and see how bad it is.
To someone who said Obama also did not decry Geffen’s statements towards Hillary. Why should he? Does Hillary disavow every supporter’s attacks on Obama and other candidates? Geffen made his comments as someone who had a falling out with Hillary, not because he had any real position in the Obama campaign.
Another reason why I can’t stand Hillary’s candidacy, it smacks of dynasty rule. I am sick of the Bushs and Clintons and their friends hogging all the power at the center. It is time for fresh new blood. Not the kind that was spilled in Iraq thanks to these families.
64 “Indian Americans should spread their dough “liberally” and not just on one candidate.”
That is a really bad idea. Like indexing in stock markets, it sounds very safe on paper for most of the time, but there is no big bang for the buck, especially if the field is small & you can predict to a fair degree of probability who will win. Besides, candidates are running against each other & if you spread the dough like that, they know you have no loyalty, so all of them will screw you. Atleast here, if this Obama memo takes off bigtime & Hillary snaps all ties with India ( very unlikely, but lets hypothesize), then you get screwed by only one person, at which point you can route your funds to Obama 🙂
Tambram:
“….Are you saying just like that one fine day Hillary & Bill decided to stick their neck out for India ? It has been very pre-meditated, very open and very decisive from Bill’s time, nothing random about it….”
Uh, yeah, it was actually ‘one fine day’: That would be ‘one fine day’ after the American govt. (at that time headed by Mr. Clinton) came to the conclusion that the Pakistani Army had crossed the LoC in Kargil, and decided that reining in the General (and Pakistan) was in both America’s and India’s interests.
Strange how that works, isn’t it? Sometimes, two different countries can have the same interests.
“But it has been bought. It is 100% true, there is no need for “alleged”. Have you ever been to any SAJA meetings on Outsourcing?…absolutely to secrecy in that Hillary is VERY cozy with India Inc…”
SAJA meetings are not the last word on this (or any other topic). You’re letting the metaphor of ‘bought’ do all the hard work for you. The mere donation of money to a politician does not entail that the politician has been ‘bought’ in the sense that he or she has been bribed to subvert American interests.
Sen. Clinton may be the recipient of a great deal of funding from Indian-Americans, but I see no evidence that she has failed to keep American interests first and foremost in her mind, whether on outsourcing or any other area of discussion between India and the U.S, say, J&K State, on which I speak as an Indian-American who is a KP. I see no great departure on her part from the traditional American stance on J&K, post the Kargil invasion.
“…I was even at the meeting at Columbia Uni where that Indian embassy chief was asked, Sir why is our Indian government not buying lobbyists for placing op-eds in newspapers on behalf of India Inc’s business interests ? The reply was very telling – they are very much buying lobbyists…”
TamBram, strange as it may seem to you, this post was not about the GOI’s lobbying efforts on its behalf. (Btw, so long as its lobbyists register as foreign agents, it’s entirely legal).
The post, and my comment, is about the propriety of American citizens of Indian descent and/or parentage lobbying politicians on any number of things, including American relations with India. To elide the difference between the two, as you do here, is to underwrite the sort of smear-job the memo attempts. My concern is not with Sen. Clinton–she can very much take care of herself–but with the effect on Indian-Americans.
“Ha ha! Dude Mister Mittal does not have to personally do outsourcing business. Its all about connections. He knows the creme-de-la-creme of India Inc on first name basis….”
Keep braying if you wish, TamBram, but you must stop the hand-waving. Do provide some evidence of massive corruption of the American political system by Indian-Americans (note the hyphen there, TamBram), if you have it. Btw, it’s rather ludicrous that Mr. Mittal–a billionaire with his own business concerns, I presume–would carry water for other business concerns! The man is interested in making more money for himself, not for India, Inc.! If he was lobbying on any specific business issue, it would surely be for his own businesses.
Regards, Kumar
61 · aa on June 15, 2007 04:01 PM · Direct link “Why was he on a pedestal in the first place?”
I have asked the same question. The man has said nothing that cuts through the clutter and addresses major issues facing the country. He sounds more like an op-ed page than a leader with a plan. You know, your skin color can only take you so far, my fellow browns.
Amardeep, this issue strikes me as much ado about almost nothing.
The “D-Punjab” comment is a direct response to Hillary’s own comment to the same effect, and carries no xenophobic weight to me. She boasted that she could get elected as a Senator from Punjab. It’s perfectly fair to probe what that actually means — a bit of a sideshow, perhaps a bit silly, but at the end of the day it’s her silliness that’s at stake, not really Obama’s. Sniping back about something like that is simply what these press operatives do — it might be a sign they all need to get out more, but I have a hard time seeing it as anything more than that.
As the memo makes clear, based on entirely factual statements, Chatwal is a somewhat shady character — something that plenty of people in the Indian community in New York have no hesitation in saying. (In one of the articles I saw in the last couple of weeks, one of Chatwal’s friends in the Indian American community described him as bringing some “baggage” to Hillary’s campaign through his support for her. And don’t forget what his spawn did to our very own Neeraja.) That makes it perfectly legitimate to wonder what kind of favorable treatment he might be expecting from Clinton in exchange for his support — especially in light of the Marc Rich fiasco. Also recall that Hillary played this same kind of game first, and much less legitimately, by huffing that Obama should renounce David Geffen’s comments about the Clintons. What goes around comes around.
The suggestions implicit in your reference to Lou “Keep ‘Em Out” Dobbs (in boldface, for good measure) is perhaps the most tenuous and troubling aspect of your post, coming pretty close to precisely what you accuse Obama’s people of doing. The Dobbs “quotes” appear only because they come from news reports discussing an exchange that Dobbs had with Hillary herself, in order to highlight her claim about Buffalo — which you concede is a rather weak one — not Dobbs’s views about anything. (And it’s not really quite right to say that there are “several” such quotes — there are only two, and they seem to come from the exact same exchange that Dobbs had with Hillary on his show. So there really seems to be only one quote, reproduced twice. And it’s a question by Dobbs in an interview, not a statement “mocking her” — in fact, at least based on the memo, it seems that Dobbs actually put the question to her in a relatively respectful manner, especially for him. 😉 )
Moreover, you have to work very hard — and ignore Obama’s actual statements and votes on immigration issues, which he has strongly articulated many times over — to read the references to Dobbs in this memo as some sort of endorsement by Obama of Dobbs’s “keep ’em out” position. (Immigration isn’t even a subject discussed in Clinton’s exchange with Dobbs, or for that matter in this memo at all.) Hmmm, Amardeep, who’s playing guilt by association now 😉 — and in this case, not even all that much of one, since I know of no connection between Obama and Dobbs…. Hillary herself made the decision to appear on Dobbs’s show, so it’s completely fair game to probe what her exchange with him is all about — given that Dobbs is a two-note piano, it’s hardly surprising that the memo would quote her statements about outsourcing from an interview with Dobbs.
Clearly, you disagree with Obama’s position on the merits of outsourcing, or at least what you infer his position to be from this memo — but of course, that’s a different conversation altogether. Opposition to or concerns about outsourcing do not automatically make someone xenophboic or “less brown friendly” — true, some opposition is tinged with xenophobic rhetoric but I don’t see that here. After all, plenty of Indian Americans also have economic concerns about outsourcing — if they’re wrong about that, it’s not because they’re “less brown friendly.” Ditto for Obama.
**
As these kinds of spin room memos go (an important qualifier that bears emphasis), this one actually seems pretty substantive to me, if perhaps not necessarily written and argued as clearly or persuasively as it could have been. I’m frankly quite surprised that you would make as big a deal of it as you have, and in the manner in which you have. It’s not even remotely at the level of George Allen’s macaca moment (ridiculous and offensive), the Joe Biden comment (ham-handed in its effort to make a positive statement, and evidence that he needs to put a filter between his brain and his mouth, but not offensive), or even Hillary’s own “Gandhi is a gas station attendant in St. Louis” comment (just plain dumb, but also pretty innocuous and inconsequential at the end of the day). But that does seem to be your suggestion. Everything in that memo could have been said in posts or comments on this site, or PTR, or any number of other desi websites (and in fact, variations on many of those statements and arguments have been, even in this comment thread). In which case, we all probably — and more productively — would be discussing the merits of the arguments being made, not the question of whether it made the post or comment author “less brown friendly.”
In my book, Obama has not been “toppled” from anything — when push comes to shove, he has been about as “brown friendly” as any other national political figure, including most recently in the immigration debate in the Senate a couple of weeks ago (for which, contrary to the implication of your post, he will be getting no praise from Lou Dobbs). Mind you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he has earned my vote just yet, either, and I can understand and respect desi folks who decide they prefer to support Hillary — she’s been a pretty “brown friendly” political figure in a number of ways herself.
But I should hope that it would take a great deal more than this tempest in a teapot before any of us would rest such a decision on the notion that this memo makes Obama somehow “less brown friendly” in a manner that should disqualify him from earning the support of South Asian Americans.
Kumar, nobody here can prove/disprove that Hillary hasn’t been “bought” by India Inc as per your definition of what “bought” is. But yes, the issue you raise was raised in SAJA also. I think that John Laxmi answered it best – Regardless of legality, there is a clear conflict of interest here. Hillary is not a Friedman who is pandering to globalization audience by writing op-eds. 1. Hillary is running for President of USA. 2. India Inc’s whole business model is outsourcing USA jobs to India. 3. Hillary takes money from India Inc.
Now you just connect the dots. Any sane person can see there is a conflict of interest here.
I am actually surprised why Obama or even the republicans didn’t jump on this low hanging fruit for so long.
“Do provide some evidence of massive corruption” – I never said that. I said Hillary is paid for by USINPAC & India Inc, Obama has not. Whether that constitutes corruption, or whether the amount qualifies as massive – you define those terms first.
I just got back from a luncheon in which Bill Clinton spoke…he mentioned India a couple of times and once he was saying something about jobs that can be created by going green, “jobs that can’t be outsourced to India” – totally innocuous and true…outsourcing is pertinent for all Americans including desi-Americans.
ANNA – by the way, I saw you walking past the Hilton on Connecticut Ave – I don’t mean to sound like a stalker, but it was cool knowing someone just cause you read the blog they write on.
Hillary herself gave the best reason as to why this American who is Brown will not vote for any of the Democrats. They all plan to raise taxes. The nannystate Republicans are just as bad. Find me a candidate that will lower taxes, cut the size of the Federal government and reduce the scope of the Federal government… either that or there will be at least one voter who will be sitting at home with a glass of scotch and a cigar rather than voting for the lesser of two evils.
The Pied Piper is right.
I don’t see your logic. If Obama is so against Hillary Clinton’s bias towards India why would he like to be in the position that he has accused Clinton of. I think it is better to stick with and rally around Clinton.
that might be me (but with a gin and tonic). as much as i have a right to vote, i also sometimes exercise my right not to vote. and it’s not out of laziness or apathy. or maybe it is apathy, but who wouldn’t be indifferent when none of the options in front of them holds promise?
Pied Piper,
Wow quite a detailed critique! First, I never made the claim that this is actually a “Macaca” moment. Saying he’s become “less brown friendly” is a far cry from that. I think there were some people, myself among them, (and we may have been misguided in this) who read “Dreams from my father” and saw all the stuff there about Kenya and the developing world, and thought, “wow, he’s like an honorary Indian.” At most I am saying that is no longer going to be the case.
On your point #1 “D-Punjab” — we’ve been going back and forth on it in the comments today, but I stand behind my claim that Obama’s campaign is using it to suggest that Hillary is selling out her primary constituency for a foreign one. It isn’t that different from calling someone D-Israel if they are particularly supportive of Israel, and I think it would piss people off if a campaign were to do that. And there’s no relevance at all to the points in the memo that the Clintons have invested in “Easy Bill,” that Bill has gotten money to speak from Cisco (a perfectly legitimate company), or that Hillary has been involved with the Senate India Caucus. Those irrelevant details in the memo add to my sense that the memo is trying to construct India as a foreign “bogeyman.”
Your points #2 and #4 are dancing around the primary problem of Obama’s hypocrisy in raising questions about Hillary’s shady donor, when he’s had his own issues with them. If his aim is to level the playing field by showing that Hillary is in bed with Chatwal, then he should have signed this memo and made clear his intention. Releasing this memo on a not for attribution basis, but not carefully controlling its recipients, has come back to “blow up in his face” (the Times’ blogger’s language, not mine). The problem isn’t that the claim is untrue; the problem is the hypocrisy and the terms by which the attack is being made. Also in your point #2, you imply some kind of quid pro quo in Chatwal’s support. There I believe you’re just speculating.
On point #3, I agree, they are quoting something slightly embarrassing that Hillary said in ’04, and you’re right that the context of the interview or the dubiousness of the interviewer doesn’t take away from that. (Perhaps I should unbold Lou Dobbs’ name and remove “keep em out”) But the implication of their criticism there is that Hillary doesn’t know what she’s talking about on outsourcing, when in fact, she was exactly right about it “cutting both ways.” If their purpose was to initiate a legitimate discussion of this subject, they would have backed it up with job loss/gain numbers of their own (in fact, I believe those number would not support their case). They would also have delivered those policy points in a very different kind of document.
“If Obama is so against Hillary Clinton’s bias towards India why would he like to be in the position that he has accused Clinton of.”
Dude, think. If that scenario happened, we’ll be just much more careful. Burnt child fears spilt milk and all that. Instead of openly supporting Obama & doing photo-ops & panel sessions, we’ll route the money to his campaign via anonymous channels & shell companies.
This Hillary-India connection, especially the public display, almost flaunting it, is very troubling to average American in much the same way Sonia-Italy connection was troubling to average Indian. You don’t want your first citizen to be so closely aligned with another nation. Expecting some distance is normal. In that sense D-Punjab is nice nakkal. Why is she putting attendance on events hosted by shady guys like that Chatwal ? That alone disqualifies her in my book.
pied piper:
I hold no brief for either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton. However, as a commenter remarked earlier, I think while Sen. Obama should not be held responsible for everything his campaign consultants do, it will be interesting (to say the least) to see how he handles this issue. I’m not inclined to make my vote turn on this issue, but I will give it much greater weight than you.
That said, I think your analysis of the memo is entirely too charitable. I agree that targeting connections to alledgedly shady characters such as Mr. Chatwal is entirely legitimate–bruising stuff, but entirely to be expected and ‘fair’. Were the memo to confine itself to such attacks, I certainly wouldn’t be toubled by it. As well, I wouldn’t be exercised by arguments over outsourcing, per se. However, when you write:
I don’t think it is fair to characterize the USINPAC as representing only elite interests–certainly, many of their concerns are shared by distinctly non-elite folks. But I’m more than willing to bracket that issue. The memo most certainly does not make even an attempt to draw out such a nuanced analysis of Indian-Americans. Rather, it not only slams USINPAC and the Senate India Caucus but also thinks the Sen. Clinton’s pablum about relations between India and America as somehow damning. Is it really controversial, for example, to hope for expanding trade relations with India or better co-operation on international terrorism? Yet, the memo quotes Sen. Clinton as if it’s something she should be made to defend.
Where is the nuance in this analysis? I think it’s reasonable to draw the conclusion that India is the bogey-country in that memo, with Indian-Americans who contribute to Sen. Clinton a close second.
“….Everything in that memo could have been said in posts or comments on this site, or PTR, or any number of other desi websites (and in fact, variations on many of those statements and arguments have been, even in this comment thread)….”
Sure, but context matters I think. It’s the context in which these facts are put. Without nuance, that makes the memo stink.
Regards, Kumar
Tambram,
In American electoral politics, raising money is paramount – lots of money – every interest group gives money to different candidates – be it from NRA, Motown, Coalition for Life, oil patch, Silicon Valley dudes and gals, lobby groups, sweet shops from South America, and all kinds of business men (they just have to be permanent residents in US) from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Greek tycoons, Mafia, BP (a British Company), ExxonMobil, Hollywood, Israel lobby, and you name it
Yes, Mafia has always played a big role in American politics.
Are they Jewish-American blogs, where people are chest-beating, and having moral dilemma about Jewish lobby? Please let me know.
I thought I’d chime in, especially since some of you may remember me discussing Obama in earlier threads. I’m one of the founders of South Asians for Obama (“SAFO”), which Amardeep referred to above. First off, as Anna noted above, I just want to make clear that SAFO is a grassroots organization, and is not part of the campaign. That means both that (1) SAFO does not speak for the campaign, and (2) the campaign doesn’t ordinarily run things, like this memo, by us before putting them out there.
Needless to say, we were perturbed when we first saw this story in the NY Times. A few of us discussed it and were about to contact someone in the campaign to get an explanation, but we heard from someone from the campaign HQ before we called them. We understand that, as others have suggested above, this was the work of a staffer and that the Senator does not agree with the views/implications of the memo. We expect a more formal response from the campaign very soon.
There is an irony here in that both the memo and (some of) its critics fail to distinguish between the interests of Indian-Americans and the interests of India and its workers. It is not insulting to Indian-Americans to complain about the offshoring of jobs to India, but it is insulting to suggest that Indian-Americans (and their political contributions) support such offshoring purely because of their ethnicity.
ROFL.. you have some weird logic.
I don’t think the connection is as strong or as cozy as you portray. Read this
At best, she probably knows Indians are not all “snake charmers” and there are some wealthy Indian Americans and Indian curry is good. 🙂
TamBram:
It isn’t my definition of ‘bought’, but the definition that the memo operates with. And your recitation of well-known facts about who funds whom doesn’t meet the test. Nor does your ‘connect the dots’ game amount to much of anything.
You have to first show that there is an actual conflict of interest–for example, lots of economists not in the pay of the MASSIVE INDIAN-AMERICAN LOBBY think that outsourcing is a small net plus (on the whole) for America–and you have not even shown that to be the case. Frenzied dot-connecting won’t substitute for a good argument.
Regards, Kumar
Do you feel this way even after the 2004 elections? (of course, the electoral college system makes your vote irrelevant in a non swing state, so maybe sitting at home doesn’t make a difference in some cases)
Amardeep and Kumar, many thanks for the responses.
Amardeep, it was Hillary’s own suggestion that she has “foreign constituencies” in the first place! Which is why your analogy doesn’t hold — if someone had made that same suggestion about their own support in Israel, then responding to it with a “D-Israel” reference wouldn’t carry the same loaded connotations that you seem to suggest it would. Perhaps it was juvenile of the Obama staffer to respond that way, but I have a hard time seeing it as more than that.
Well, if she cites a rather questionable example in support of her argument, then maybe she doesn’t.
Obama responded directly to at least one of the incidents you note and said he had made a boneheaded mistake; the Clintons haven’t tended to be as forthright, and their history with Marc Rich etc puts them in a different position than him. And also don’t forget that it’s the Clintons’ anger at David Geffen’s scathing critique of their character that started the name-calling about “apologize for your donors” in this campaign, so we could understand this as calling out Hillary about her hypocrisy …. But regardless, even assuming that Obama’s being hypocritical, how does that make him “less brown friendly”? If it’s hypocrisy that you’re concerned about, the fact that it’s Chatwal who’s the slimy donor in this case rather than someone else shouldn’t make any difference to you.
I’m not sure I understand your point here. Clearly, some Indian Americans happen to share the substantive concerns expressed in the memo. Does that make them less “Indian”? If the memo makes Obama less of an “honorary Indian,” then that would seem to logically follow. But of course that would make no sense.
Kumar, in the spirit of paying attention to context, I take your point but there’s a flipside to the issue of context — try this narrative out. Some inexperienced or clueless staffer gets carried away and writes a rather poorly written and argued political memo, under the pressures of deadlines and political/media realities, in an effort to score as many quick political points as possible. (It happens with every major political campaign, which are all staffed by fallible humans, after all.) To go from that so quickly to “Obama is less brown friendly” is a major leap — after all, Amardeep made much the same mistake with his cheap shots about Lou Dobbs and immigration, and your point about the incoherence of the paragraph about USINPAC and the Senate caucus only supports that narrative. It happens; at the end of the day, it’s also not the biggest deal in the world. For us to act like it is undermines any sense that, as a community, we have the political sophistication to distinguish between issues that really matter and trivial, largely symbolic (if that) sideshows.
All of this strikes me as “chocolate mousse politics” — it might have a brown hue, but with one spoonful you realize that there’s a LOT more air than flavor. 😉
“This Hillary-India connection, especially the public display, almost flaunting it, is very troubling to average American in much the same way Sonia-Italy connection was troubling to average Indian. You don’t want your first citizen to be so closely aligned with another nation”
virtually all the candidates (hillary included) probably have much more public displays of their support/loyalty to Israel than Hillary does to India. sonia gandhi was an italian by birth. clinton is not an indian by birth who was raised in india and then moved to the u.s. she has no family/cultural ties to india (not that that should be a cause for suspicion in and of itself).
as for concerns about indian-americans using their influence to further their private interests or those beneficial to india, that’s valid. however, those indian-americans who use their power/wealth/influence to further their private interests that are not beneficial to india or are critical of india or seek to use us. senators to castigate india and step over their boundaries are also sometimes a concern and should undergo equal scrutiny.
(clarification: meaning that your correct point about the incoherence of that paragraph only supports the narrative i posit of the clueless or inexperienced staffer going overboard, rather than suggesting something more deeply insidious.)
i still might. as you said, the electoral college system makes individual votes sometimes irrelevant. it’s way too early to call – i’ll have to see who end up as the final candidates, what their issues are etc. if we look at iraq as a singular issue, it depends on what sort of strategy is proposed – rather than a general ‘let’s get out of this war.’ if there are other issues where i see one candidate having a position that i find particularly compelling, that might influence me. in 2004, i didn’t want to support bush, but i found that kerry was not a strong enough contender, and i was a bit upset about the way how he ran his campaign.
What do you make of something like this ?
quote “top politicians and industrialists have started building a very special informal relationship with the former First Lady of America who is also the most probable next President of United States”
Certainly seems like she met a lot of $$ desis who aren’t charming snakes, na ? You can find a lot more snarky press on her visits to India if you google away. And please, don’t bring in this “outsourcing is net plus for US economy” canard. You can practically debate all night on that, jury is still out. I’ll just give you most common rejoinder to that – just because you favor Toyota & Honda doesn’t mean workers at the Ford plant are happy you are going in for better quality autos. It affects them directly in that they can’t find work at Ford anymore. Similarly, the average American programmer who doesn’t want to move to India isn’t interested in this small net plus to economy, he just wants his programming job right here in the US of A. Whether he’s right or wrong in thinking that way is not the point, fact is he is the votebank. He will vote with his feet. I don’t personally have to work up a frenzy and connect dots, somebody in the press just has to spin this. It is more than enough if this memo shows up on the talk shows. If Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly or Michael Medved get into this and get a few callers riled up and get some press, Hillary will suddenly start looking very uncomfortable. At that point, nobody will say “Show me clear conflict of interest”. By then goose is already cooked. Lets see how it plays out by end of next week.
Tambram:
Keep googling, dude. You’re bound to hit something, sooner or later. As for what you uncovered, the headline reads ‘Hillary Clinton in New Delhi – plans to meet the very inner core of Indian politicians and industrialists’ I’m sure Sen. clinton met the creamy nougat core of elite Indians, but what does that show, exactly? That she has a good advance team, and so met the connected types in India? It doesn’t quite detail, well, much of anything, besides that. So, I don’t know what you think you proved with that.
As for the rest of your post, it’s old-hat: Most everyone acknowledges that trade of all sorts has differential effects on various levels of society, but it is a net plus for the countries concerned over the long run (say, trading partners like India and America). Moreover, simply because I believe this and may contribute to a politician who believes similarly does not mean that I–an Indian-American–corrupted said pol.
I’m not suprised that some will try and demagogue this issue–note, I am not suggesting that outsourcing ought not to be debated. However, I do think that characterizing a Sen. who doesn’t believe in banning outsourcing as having been (willingly) corrupted by his or her Indian-American donors is wrong, and must be resisted.
Part of that resistance is to ask, however many times is necessary, for proof of such allegations. So I would ask the authors of the memo, as well as you TamBram yet again (because you seem to have this mysterious ability to connect dots): Where’s your proof? If you want to make a half-way decent argument on this point, googling irrelevant articles from the Indian press won’t do.
Regards, Kumar
Okay, how about we start small, something along the lines of this
pied piper:
I agree that the memo went overboard, of course, but I think that memo hangs together rather too well–it’s all of a piece. India and Indian-Americans are here, there and everywhere in the memo’s rather feverish vision of a Sen. clinton corrupted by India and her Indian-American contributors.
You mistakenly think this memo was meant as some sort of analytic piece on Sen. Clinton’s policy, and so you don’t give as much weight to the random summoning of the apparition of the ‘corrupting Indian-Americans and India’. Certainly, there’s some substance–at least as far as political campaigns go–in this memo (Chatwal etc., as I indicated earlier), but the incoherence of that paragraph on the Senate India Caucus is irrelevant. It’s simply yet another chance to conjure the India/Indian-American bogeyman to rile people.
It’s all good, so far as the writer(s) of the memo is concerned: Slighting Sen. Clinton as ‘D-Punjab’ (that it was a joke on her part doesn’t alleviate the rather nasty implications of that phrase in the context–yes, that word, again–of the memo), or ‘exposing’ her membership in the Senate India Caucus, and worse yet (GASP!) Sen. Clinton mouthing pablum about greater trade relations w/ India or increased cooperation on int’l terrorism, or the shame of going to a fund-raiser at which Mr. Mittal was present. All serve to highlight her connections to India, and Indian-Americans.
I admit that I am a tyro in my understanding of the inner workings of American political campaigns, so I am willing to defer to those with more experience. But it seems to me that even if a lowly staffer were to have churned out the memo, it would surely have been reviewed by someone higher-up, wouldn’t it? Moreover, would a lowly staffer have been the one to organize a not-for-attribution leak to the media? I am rather doubtful.
I do want to emphasize, however, that the eventual weight I assign this memo will turn on Sen. Obama’s reaction. DTK, of ‘South Asians for Obama’ tells us in #80 above that the Sen. is expected to make a response, and I am very curious about his reaction.
Regards, Kumar
I think the point is that Obama has come out criticizing a specific subset of donors to the Clinton campaign, namely, Indians. Has Obama not accepted donations from employees/directors of companies that have offices in Bangalore? If the point of the memo is show that Clinton is pro-outsourcing, why mention Chatwal and Mittal? As if all of Obama’s donors are squeaky clean. It seems like Obama’s intention is to discredit Indian American donors, and insinuate they are not patriotic as they support outsourcing.
Unless, of course, there might be some element of truth to that, in which case we do our entire community a disservice by not taking that possibility seriously.
pied piper:
Agreed, of course. But my point was that the mere fact of donating to a Senator who agrees with me–an Indian-American–ought not to be made the sole basis for insinuations about my corruption of that Senator. After all, that Senator might well agree with my analysis of a particular issue for reasons of his or her own, or–hard to believe, I know–but he or she may have found my arguments somewhat convincing. Or, of course, he or she may just be a whore looking to sell themselves. This holds true for anyone involved in politics, hyphenated American or not.
But the latter conclusion can be reached only if some additional positive evidence is present–if that is the case, then of course let the insinuations and charges fly. Then, and only then, should one take the possibility seriously. I don’t think the memo comes anywhere close to that (rather reasonable) standard. It is an attempt to raise the India/Indian-American bogeyman as I argued earlier.
Regards, Kumar
I am on the Obama mailing list, and I had just volunteered today (!) to host a women’s meeting on Sunday to promote his candidacy. After reading this article, I just sent the following email to the Obama political machine:
Hi,
I would really appreciate it if you could explain the meaning of this article to me. As an Indian American, I am getting increasingly concerned that perhaps Mr. Obama does not have my best interests at heart? Using outsourcing as an easy slur, and vilifying candidates because of their “Indian connection” does not sound very “clean” to me.
Unless you can convince me otherwise, I might just end up using my meeting on Sunday to discuss this article with my friends, all of whom are currently Obama supporters, but who may not be after I am done!
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2007/06/team_obama_rips_clintons_in_op.html
Regards,
Priya
“…your correct point about the incoherence of that paragraph only supports the narrative i posit of the clueless or inexperienced staffer going overboard, rather than suggesting something more deeply insidious.”
We should hope that the good Senator makes a statement, for the buck stops there. “South Asian for Obama” apologists would do better to hasten a clarification, rather than vetting tendentious analysis of the community-baiting “memo”. And I really hope he does…
I’m an Indian American, Democratic political hack, who has stayed out of the primary campaign to date. That changed today.
I’m a practical realistic political operative – going after outsourcing to China and India as a major economic issue is fair game in the progressive and frankly conservative worlds these days.
But as my friend said to me about this Obama, anti-Indian, research memo, “every reference to India and Indians in this piece has a tone of sarcasm, condescension, and racism in the use of “quotes†and choice of words.†I used to write these documents for a living, and know the lines, and they crossed it.
This isn’t just about follow the money; I’m for that on ALL sides — it’s about progressive values and this research document is steeped in racism and fear of “brown people.†Ironic when you think about the source.
For a candidate who is the very picture of American diversity, who has lived abroad and himself had to fight off untrue and bigoted allegations about his education in Indonesia, Obama and his campaign should have known better.
Kumar — well, I don’t suppose it’s any more acceptable to you coming from me rather than from Obama’s campaign staff, but at risk of having you and Amardeep regard me as “less Indian,” let me raise what you are calling the “India/Indian-American bogeyman” myself: I think there are a lot of wealthy individuals in the Indian American community who are indeed influencing the positions of politicians on issues relating to India and Indian Americans — including, perhaps, Sen. Clinton, who I more or less respect and agree with on more issues than not — in a manner that at times may be at odds with the positions and interests of many Indian Americans for whom they shamelessly claim to speak, or at minimum may not reflect their priorities, as Abhi has written. Often, that does indeed involve shilling for the Government of India itself. Whether or not any of that is true about outsourcing (and some of the statements by some of these donors themselves suggest that it might be), it was definitely true of the nuclear deal. And regardless of what else might be problematic about the process by which it has happened — problematic in a very minor way, I hasten to add — I welcome the fact that we, as a community, have been provoked by Obama’s campaign memo to consider the issue directly and head on. Assuming of course that we have been, which remains an open question.
I don’t know that we need a smoking gun approaching the level of an indictable offense to be legitimately concerned about the role that desi money might be playing in the politics of our community. We have a broken, big-donor driven campaign finance system that has completely distorted and corrupted our national politics and disenfranchised people who can’t pay to play, and there is ample reason to believe that it may be distorting the politics of the Indian American community as well. Why should we have any reason to believe that wealthy Indian American donors are any less susceptible to playing that kind of distorting role in our politics — or put differently, to believe that they are somehow any more virtuous — than any other wealthy campaign fundraisers who finance powerful politicians and usually seek to advance their own private interests and preferences in the process? To be sure, I’m not suggesting that they are necessarily any less virtuous, all other things being equal — after all, if the underlying problem is structural, wealthy Indian American donors aren’t necessarily any more or less culpable than anyone else. But that also does not mean that they shouldn’t be let off the hook and not called to account for the role that they are playing — especially since the insult to injury with a lot of the folks in this crowd is that they routinely claim to speak on behalf of the interests of the entire Indian American community in the process, and many politicians in both parties do seem to take those claims seriously. Given all the evidence for the corrupting influence of big money in politics more generally, the presumption should run in favor of being skeptical.
In any event — and mind you, I haven’t even decided who I ultimately will support, Bill Richardson still being very much in the mix as well — with the Clintons there’s plenty of “positive evidence,” as you put it, that should give us pause. You’ll recall that during the 1990s, they practically rented out the Lincoln Bedroom to wealthy campaign contributors. And as I mentioned earlier, there was the questionable business involving the Marc Rich pardon.
Senator Obama is livid over this incident. His campaign manager has released a statement expressing regret about the tone of what we know to be the unacceptable portions.
Boneheaded moves by campaign staffers unbeknownst to the candidate do not undermine Senator Obama’s life experience as a person of color–a life that he vividly and movingly described in his book Dreams From My Father. Senator Obama remains “a candidate who is the very picture of American diversity, who has lived abroad and himself had to fight off untrue and bigoted allegations about his education in Indonesia” and even his name. His passion for public service is borne of these experiences.
Like many of you, I was disappointed by what his campaign staff did. But you can only imagine how upset he must be if those actions do not represent his values or his very being.