Click here for linkThose of us from Chicago know exactly what the Solyndra scandal smells like. And It doesn't smell fresh and green.
John Kass
September 18, 2011
The Solyndra scandal cost at least a half-billion public dollars. It is plaguing President Barack Obama. And it's being billed as a Washington story.
But back in Obama's political hometown, those of us familiar with the Chicago Way can see something else in Solyndra — something that the Washington crowd calls "optics."
The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden got a nice photo op. They got to make speeches about being "green."
Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan.
So forget optics. What about smell? It smells bad, and it's going to smell worse.
This is not a new kind of politics. It's the old kind. The Chicago kind.
And now the Tribune Washington Bureau has reported that the U.S. Department of Energy employee who helped monitor the Solyndra loan guarantee was one of Obama's top fundraisers.
Fundraising? Contracts? Imagine that.
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