Can Bill Oberle really be this stupid and careless?
Illegal? Maybe. Wrong? Certainly.
By steering state business to his company (yes – I said his company) and by obtaining direct financial benefit from a fund which he established – Oberle is on thin ice legally, and even thinner ethical ice.
Link to Nancy Willing’s Delaware way.
Oy
I just got around to reading the editorial over on WNJ. And I stuck my neck out earlier when FSP called me out.
This is the year for change. I will go to the AG tomorrow and tell what I know.
The problem for me is that this is the pervasive Delaware way that Oberle is one of the many.
I will not rest easy if he gets picked and others get away.
“by obtaining direct financial benefit from a fund which he established”
He won a horse race. Is that really “obtaining direct financial benefit?”
The fact that he is candid about the unethical behavior and knows that it “looks bad” makes it all okay. Didn’t you read the article?
God I love the internet. Go Nancy!
This is just like Paul Clark heading up the NCC Council while his wife represents some of the most controversial land use issues before the council, Clark is pocketing her cash in the end as her spouse, cash that she reaps under the land use process he indirectly controls.
Even if Clark recuses from some direct decisions regarding his wife’s business, as council chair he assigns committee leadership, he controls council agenda etc, etc, etc,.
As per the phone commercial:
“OMG! TISNF!”
I just read the fistfight going on over at FSP between Nancy and Dave. Nancy claims to have evidence of ethically challenged behavior on Oberle’s part. Dave has responded with two arguments:
1) other guys are doing bad stuff too; and
2) a rather telling absence of any sort of acknowlegement that Oberle’s behavior is indeed ethically challenged.
1) other guys are doing bad stuff too; and
This is the Republican “God Bless you” rejoinder to every ethical sneeze. It is automatic.
2) a rather telling absence of any sort of acknowlegement that Oberle’s behavior is indeed ethically challenged.
Did you notice how Dave mentioned the horse race and by passed the other funny business? As Artie Johnson might has said, “Veeery Interesting”
My argument is that Nancy accused Bill Oberle of a crime and then declined numerous times to present anything that would lend credibility to that accusation.
Oberle’s behavior is not ethically challenged.
Dave, c’mon. Having a legislative office tied in to vendor selection where the zero-sum game (an award to one vendor means the other vendor loses) victimizes the blind is indefensible. What next? Award the blind a contract for $1,000, and write them a check for $1 because they can’t tell the difference?
Victimizing the blind? Seriously?
Find me where Blue Hen or Oberle solicited the state for those goods.
Oberle’s wife got business that should have gone to the blind. Whether or not his wife’s skillful bidding process victimized the blind, or whether Oberle’s wife’s business is a “blind trust” (Oberle’s words, seemingly taken from Cheney’s “blind trust” explanation of Halliburton), it stinks. It stinks badly.
The purchaser is not to blame, only the seller?
How did Blue Hen know that the business she received was supposed to go to the blind?
FSP puts words in my mouth, per usual.
I have maintained that I have direct knowledge of persons suggesting that buttons be purchased from Blue Hen in order to grease a request to Oberle as chair of the money committees.
Never have I said that Oberle was directly involved in this process.
I’m trying to get to the state constitution (specifically the oath of office for elected officials) where I’m sure this type of thing is mentioned – however the site is down.
What you said was –
“I have personal knowledge that a common function to help push one’s agenda through the legis (Oberle is co-chair of the Bond Bill committee) is the shunting of business to Oberle’s wife’s enterprise. It doesn’t have to be much more than a token amount, evidently, to grease this particular wheel.”
You are saying that not only did this practice take place, but that it was effective.
Backtracking now will not save you.
How was your trip to the AG’s office?
evidently is akin to allegedly – D’OH!!
Dave – best leave this to the adults.
The transaction never panned out because the reason for the funding request disolved. That does not change the fact that a myriad of locals were primed to pay for, design and commission these trinkets for the express purpose of a happy Oberle…it was never expressed that Oberle or his wife were privy to any of these goings on. What is clear and undeniable is that folks bought into the premise that a $300 token Blue Hen purchase was the thing to do.
I have tired of repeating myself. You are on the witch hunt and you can be satisfied or not with my explaination. 🙂 I am done.
You called it a “common function,” meaning it is done often.
Face it, Nancy. You lied, you got caught, and now even you are admitting you have no proof.
You are a fraud.
The prosecution rests.
😉
I will add that your parse and spin is your own, Dave. I stand by my story. It remains to be seen if anyone wants the testimony.
~
I figure that Dave is all itchy for two reasons:
1. the local GOP is circling the wagons around one of their most powerful Assemblyman. Period. Right or wrong – sound familiar?
2. this is the DE way in spades (both partie’ reps gladly sink low and enable all sorts of unethical behavior to be swept under rugs).
my honest and natural response is to seek out the most independent voices in 2008. In my opinion, that best fit is a vote Jack Markell for governor. I think Burris got bent out of shape that I confounded Oberle enrichment story with a call for Markell.
Dave wants to drag me through his mud puddles.
Dave employs the GOP lowlife mantra mode here: repeating their lying spin non-stop in hopes that it will become “truth”,
as in the percentage of folks who still think that there were WMD,
that Al Qaeda was in Iraq before we invaded,
that Saddam was involved in nine eleven,
that global warming ain’t human-borne,
that evolution is bunk,
etc. etc. etc.
Nice going Dave. You certainly have shown your bulldog grip before in blogland, not letting folks shake you off! – back in your Delathought days…that’s OK. Be you :-), we expect nothing less.
You lied. You got caught. Attacking the messenger doesn’t help.
“It remains to be seen if anyone wants the testimony.”
No one wants the testimony, because no one believes a word you say?
How’d your trip to the AG’s office go? Or was that a lie, too?
“it was never expressed that Oberle or his wife were privy to any of these goings on.”
Wouldn’t that be essential to the case for deeming Oberle’s behavior as unethical?
LOL … just like “Wayne Smith knew about Atkins,” eh Nance? Keeping score it’s 2-0 with you the proud owner of that proverbial goose egg.
In your own parlance, “What a hoot.”
If Oberle’s family business/political dealings are in fact legal and ethical, then Oberle’s kids are missing a huge opportunity if they don’t IMMEDIATELY open a lemonade stand in front of their house. There will soon be a long line of cars buying seconds and thirds and praising the value and quality of the lemonade.
*Disclaimer: I don’t know if he has kids or how old they are. I was just making a point.
There is a nice and juicy blog up about my Oberle story and Dave Burris’ hypocracy over at DE Way – feast on.