What's pale yellow, riddled with holes and not very sharp? President Barack Obama's renewed class-warfare attack on GOP opponent Mitt Romney.
To kick off the Independence Day holiday, America's fundraiser-in-chief took to Twitter to stoke wealth-bashing resentment against Republicans. "FACT," Obama's official Twitter account declared, "In 2010, Romney reported having a $3 million Swiss bank account." Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina piled on, urging "every reporter covering Romney" to read left-wing Vanity Fair's new report on his offshore finances. In a water-carrying news conference call, Obama campaign flack Ben LaBolt assailed Romney's "mysterious corporation in Bermuda, his funds in the Cayman Islands and the Swiss bank account he opened."
The Democratic wizards of election-year optics believe that such populist rhetoric demonizing foreign money will help shore up their left flank and win independents tired of crony, out-of-touch government. One problem: They launched their class war fusillade in the same week that Tinseltown tycoon George Clooney announced Obama fundraising efforts -- in Geneva, Switzerland. Oops.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney will entertain 150 European elites at a swanky Swiss reception, "which will be followed by a more intimate -- and expensive -- dinner at which the star will be the guest of honor. Tickets for the latter event will go for $20,000 for singles and $30,000 for couples." As Reuters reported at the time, Clooney spearheaded a similar event in Geneva, "one of the world's most affluent cities," in 2008. "Some 170 contributors paid $1,000 a head to hear him speak at a cocktail party held at a museum in Geneva's Old Town. And 75 high-rolling supporters spent $10,000 each to attend 'an intimate seated dinner'" with the actor.
Swiss money for thee, but not for Romney, eh, Democrats?
Even more problematic for Obama: Some of his very best campaign finance bundlers and golfing buddies are architects and beneficiaries of the Swiss tax havens he purports to abhor.
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Robert Wolf is president of Swiss financial giant UBS Investment Bank and chairman of UBS Americas. According to campaign finance records, this longtime friend and fat cat has personally bundled more than $500,000 for Obama, dating back to Obama's Illinois Senate days.
Obama and Wolf were introduced by radical leftist billionaire George Soros and have remained golfing and basketball buddies ever since. Wolf sits on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and the presidential Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. In August 2010, Obama's Internal Revenue Service dropped its lawsuit over UBS tax havens. The company forked over nearly $800 million to make the investigators all go away.
Wolf's no lone Swiss-based Obama wolf. The left-leaning BuzzFeed and right-leaning Washington Free Beacon websites both noted in April that another deep-pocketed Obama bundler, Charles Adams, heads the Swiss office of powerhouse law firm Akin Gump. He's raised at least $100,000.
It's fondue-savory to watch the current administration, up to its eyeballs in tax cheats and scofflaws from the Treasury Department to the Health and Human Services Department to the Labor Department, railing about Romney's purported tax evasion. It's even richer to watch Obama's operatives huff and puff about Romney's lack of transparency while using Romney's own disclosed tax forms to disparage his wealth, investments and private-sector success.
This is 100 percent, unadulterated envy politics, doused in hypocritical whine. Like Obama's favorite imported Swiss cheese, it reeks.
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