During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, John McCain attempted to skewer Barack Obama by criticizing an earmark Obama had requested for a $3-million “overhead projector.” My colleague Justin Peters, a Chi-town native, picked up on this gross understatement during CJR’s live blogging session:
As somebody who grew up in the Chicago area, I’m pretty sure that the $3.4 million “overhead projector” that McCain was so angry about belongs to the Sky Theater at the Adler Planetarium. The Adler and the Sky Theater have taught generations of students about astronomy.
Anybody looking for complete elaboration should check out this post on Alan Boyle’s blog, Cosmic Log, at MSNBC.com. The device was indeed destined for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and no mere movie-night projector is this. The one Obama wanted to finance would have replaced an outdated model that is currently in use there, but the earmark for the new projector didn’t get funded, Boyle writes (though it is not uncommon for planetariums to received federal money for such devices).
I guess one can still debate the merits of funding even the most impressive projector (and one at which schoolchildren from across the Midwest would surely marvel on class field trips), but clearly McCain is once again misconstruing Obama’s position on earmarks at the expense of science. Boyle seems proactively peeved:
“All the publicity about this should help the Adler Planetarium raise the $3 million without the federal earmark,” he wrote in an update to his post. “In fact, I’ll be doing my part. I’m sending the planetarium a check for $140 today. This is in lieu of the political contributions that I never give because I’m a journalist. If everyone who has clicked onto this Web page so far sent in that amount as an average contribution, the planetarium would have more than $3 million in new money for their capital fund campaign. I’m going to write on my check that this is for ‘planetarium earmark avoidance,’ and you’re free to do the same.”
Cheers to that, but more importantly, cheers for solid fact checking and elaboration.
I would love further explanation of your final point. Wasn't McCain's criticism that Obama sought an earmark to pay for an expensive projector? Did Obama not do that? Did McCain not say at the debate that it was for a planetarium? I don't believe that McCain ever said the projector was funded but only that it was requested by Obama. How is this misleading and what does this alleged "solid fact checking and elaboration" provide?
Posted by whysoharsh on Fri 10 Oct 2008 at 05:16 PM
One of Obama's Earmarks Went to Hospital That Employs Michelle Obama. In the list of earmarks he requested, $1 Million was requested for the construction of a new hospital pavilion at the University Of Chicago. You know who works for the University of Chicago Hospital? Michelle Obama. She's vice president of community affairs. As Byron noted, "In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office." Looks like that raise was worth it.
Want to "debunk" that earmark?
Posted by Carl Stevens on Fri 10 Oct 2008 at 05:35 PM
The point to be made, whysoharsh, is with McCain's description of the device as an "overhead projector," which could be interpreted as a small office device instead of a complex system. McCain seemed to be presenting the idea as a variant of the mythical million-dollar toilet, which would be a misleading narrative.
Posted by smokeharsh on Fri 10 Oct 2008 at 07:25 PM
Want to "debunk" that earmark?
There's nothing to debunk. You've collected events in a way that implies impropriety without proving impropriety exists. Her raise took place before Senator Obama took office, before the earmark. You imply that the earmark was a reward for the raise. You offer nothing to de-bunk, nothing to prove that Sen. Obama added this earmark as a quid pro quo for the raise, nothing to suggest he—as a former University of Chicago professor—was not contacted by the University chancellor or other representative on this matter, nothing to show that he was not acting in the interest of his state by helping to get federal money for the University's hospital. All you offer is a few loosely related facts, a nudge, and a wink, and a suggestion that there is a causal relationship. What is there to de-bunk?
If you've got something that proves his wife's raise, produced the $1 million earmark, please include share it. Otherwise, there's nothing here to discuss.
Posted by joeyp on Mon 13 Oct 2008 at 07:58 PM
After looking into the projector earmark, there certainly seems to be more here than meets the eye.
While the Adler Planetarium earmarks look normal on the surface, there is a catch. The Chairman and two of the Vice Chairman of the Adler Planetarium Board of Trustees raised a total of almost $250,000 for Sen. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Frank Clark, stands out amongst Obama supporters. On Sen. Obama’s website, Mr. Clark is listed as a bundler who raised in excess of $200,000 for the Senator’s Presidential campaign. In 2004, Mr. Clark donated $5,000 to the then State Senator Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. In 2005, Mr. Clark became the Chairman of the Board at Adler Planetarium, and in 2006 Sen. Obama earmarked $300,000 to the Planetarium. Then, in the same year that Mr. Clark’s involvement in the Obama campaign skyrocketed to raising an excess of $200,000, Sen. Obama’s earmark for the Adler Planetarium increased tenfold to $3,000,000.
Mr. Clark isn’t the only problematic donor. Two of the Vice Chairmen of the Board, Brian Cressey and Peter Thompson are also significant donors. Between donations from Mr. Thompson and the Cressey household, Sen. Obama received $13,800. The most significant donor here is Mr. Cressey. As a first time donor, Mr. Cressey gave the maximum possible individual donation in essentially one big check. What makes this even more troubling is that Mr. Cressey had never given to Sen. Obama before 2008, the year in which the Adler Planetarium’s earmark increased tenfold.
The fact that three ranking members of the Adler Planetarium’s Board donated huge sums of money (at least $200,000) is interesting by itself. The fact that these enormous contributions came in the same year that Sen. Obama increased their earmark by 900% is truly unsettling.
This material wasn’t difficult to find, in fact Thenextright did it performing a task once referred to as journalism.
http://thenextright.com/davidb11171/change-you-can-earmark
Posted by Carl Stevens on Mon 13 Oct 2008 at 11:12 PM
So just like the earmark for the Planetarium, Michelle's employer's earmark and Father Pfelgers money, it seems that Friends of Barry certainly are lucky when appropriation time comes.
Posted by Carl Stevens on Mon 13 Oct 2008 at 11:16 PM
The Adler Planetarium is a non-profit organization. Should we not distinguish between candidate fundraising done by someone on the board of a non-profit public resource and someone with business interests resulting in personal profit from the election of a particular official? I don't know anything about the business interests of the fundraisers in question, but I see no problem with civic-minded individuals working for the election of someone they perceive to have the best interests of the public in mind. Does anyone have evidence to suggest that these fundraisers stood to gain personally from their association?
Posted by R Ungefehr on Tue 14 Oct 2008 at 11:56 AM
Should we not distinguish between candidate fundraising done by someone on the board of a non-profit public resource and someone with business interests resulting in personal profit from the election of a particular official?
Tit for tat and quid pro quo, and in this case pay for play are just as bad regardless of where they are done.
Does anyone have evidence to suggest that these fundraisers stood to gain personally from their association?
Aside from a multi million dollar earmark?
Posted by Carl Stevens on Wed 15 Oct 2008 at 12:32 PM
"Aside from a multi million dollar earmark?"
Which is obviously not a personal gain for men working for a non-profit.
It's interesting that after joeyp called Carl Stevens on his utter lack of evidence that anything improper occured, Carl ignored everything joeyp had to say and repeated the same mistake with a different story. Happenstance doesn't make a story true no matter how much you'd like it to be so or how vile it may sound.
Posted by Mark Chandler on Fri 17 Oct 2008 at 03:19 AM