Democratic Koch-puppets

Case in point. One really must applaud Brad Friedman's work in exposing the Koch secret confab, which is already creating huge repercussions in New Jersey. As you will recall, Republican Koch-puppet governor Chris Christie was one of the secret speakers at KochFest 2011...

The hottest of the firestorms to develop on Wednesday in NJ, surrounded Christie's remarks at the Koch event concerning backroom efforts to secretly support the Democratic Speaker of the state Assembly, Sheila Oliver, in exchange for her support for a bill that slashed public employee pensions and benefits.

In his KochFest speech, Christie talked about how he brought Oliver on board. Oliver now denies that she ever had such a secret conversation with Christie. In fact, she called Christie "mentally deranged." But results is results...

The pen-ben bill (as it's known in NJ) was ultimately passed in the lower chamber 46 to 32, with 33 Republicans and 13 Dems voting in favor, and the majority of Dems voting against. Local Democrats and unions were furious at both Oliver and Senate President Steve Sweeney for working with Christie to pass the bill.

Oliver says Christie is deranged. Christie says that Oliver was "courageous" for selling out her liberal base. (He's really twisting the knife.)

Oliver happens to be black. I mention this only because, back in 2008, this blog received many, many angry comments from people who insisted that Obama couldn't possibly be a sell-out or a phoney because -- well, because he's black. Anyone who called him corrupt must be a racist. Or so we were told -- then.

I think by this point we all know that a backroom deal is a backroom deal, and race has nothing to do with it. That is the great lesson of these years.