Sunday, September 11, 2005

Halliburton, Anyone?

CNN is reporting that firms with ties to the White House are getting Katrina contracts. Cronyism! Halliburton!

Michelle Malkin gives us a little more detail:

The Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, CNN tells us, is a major corporate client of Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Among its Katrina-related contracts are this one valued up to $100 million from FEMA; and this one also valued up to $100 million from the Army Corps of Engineers.

But in their zeal to embarrass the Bush administration, CNN overlooks one very fat and inconvenient fact--and embarrasses only itself.

The Shaw Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate, is headed by Jim Bernhard, the current chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. Bernhard worked tirelessly for Democrat Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's runoff campaign and served as co-chair of her transition team. Another Shaw executive was Blanco's campaign manager. Bernhard is back-scratching chums with Blanco, whom he has lent/offered the Shaw Group's corporate jets to on numerous occasions.

Hmm, I say.

1 comment:

Darren said...

I'm not a 100% opponent of no-bid contracts. What I *am* an opponent of is trying to make this look like Republican cronyism, when that clearly isn't the case here.

I am an opponent of outright dishonesty.