What Do You Expect

Do we, who expect adherence to the principles of our founding, expect too much from our leaders?

President Obama has met resistance to the suggestion of Susan Rice as his new Secretary of State and the Left has countered with claims of racism and gender discrimination, moves that are Obama’s first lines of defense and as predictable as the tides.

Americans should expect a president to offer cabinet positions to people with moral integrity equal to his own; thus we should not be surprised with the Petraeus fiasco and the Fast and Furious felonies of Eric Holder. America realizes Rice lied to the American people on five different networks to protect the image of Obama and his competency. His boasts of neutralizing al-Qaeda following the assassination of Bin Ladin and the assertion that Libya was a noble war in that we enabled the overthrow of a dictator, who was a semi-reliable ally and helped install the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood who is a sworn enemy of the United States and Israel, were possible negative attributes before an election, despite the assurance of having the media in his pocket.

It is politics, and we can accept the fact that Rice is an Obama stooge. She willingly and knowingly participated in a coverup of the Benghazi atrocity, but all of the Obama appointees will lie for the president or they would not have their positions. However, Susan Rice has more troubling issues than lying to America as a part of the Benghazi coverup; she and her husband have oil investments with companies that have been trading with Iran in contradiction to the oil embargoes.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice and her husband own modest stakes in companies that have until recently done business with Iran, prompting new questions from those opposed to her possible nomination as secretary of state.

The companies are global conglomerates. At least some of them have stopped doing business with Iran in order to comply with international sanctions.

“With respect to Iran, Ambassador Rice worked to impose the toughest U.N. sanctions regime ever on Iran for its continued failure to live up to its obligations,” said Rice’s spokeswoman, Erin Pelton. “Iran is more isolated than it has ever been and facing the toughest economic pressure ever mustered.”

Pelton added that Rice “has complied with annual financial disclosure requirements aimed at assessing conflicts of interest related to her service in the U.S. government.”

One of the biggest of the holdings, between $50,000 and $100,000, according to Rice’s disclosure statement for 2011, is Royal Dutch Shell. The international oil giant stopped buying crude oil from Iran early this year as sanctions were tightened to block oil exports by Iran and to stop financial transactions with its central bank.

A company spokesman said officials dealing with Iran could not be reached, but a person familiar with the company, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to discuss the topic, said Royal Dutch Shell owes Iran about $1 billion.

Rice and her husband also own between $15,000 and $50,000 of stock in ENI, the Italian international oil company. ENI has said that it is no longer doing business with Iran, but it has a waiver from sanctions to enable it to collect oil as payment for about $1 billion Iran owes the company from earlier business deals. The company had been purchasing crude oil and developing natural gas fields.

Could the close financial ties with Iran affect her aggressiveness in dealing with Iran? Would her financial dealings with oil in the Middle East influence her opinions on Iran. Is her oil money dirty money like the money from oil earned by Republicans or is it “clean” oil money of the Progressive type.

If someone had impeccable moral integrity, they might be considered above such beyond such considerations, but we must remember, we are dealing with an Obama stooge who feels no remorse for lying to the American public during a time of mourning and humiliation to protect the image of the omnipotent Obama.

Yes, Rice was a Rhodes Scholar and she is extremely wealthy; she and her husband seem to have made a fortune in oil and logging without the ugly stain attached to Republicans with similar portfolios. It is ironic how such minor blemishes like oil, logging, and lying don’t affect Democrats in the public eye or the media.