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Bob Dole: Making "Integrity" a Dirty Word

Bob Dole Beefcake: "Hey Fred, is Haley on the line?... Good, Well listen to this idea!"

Friday, October 24th 1997: You just have to shake your head when you see headlines like -- "Bob Dole offers to testify before Fred Thompson's FinanceGate Committee." At first glance the average voter, especially if he or she is a Republican, might think, "Yeah, Bob'll show 'em. Bob's Mr. Clean, he'll make Clinton look worse than he does already."

But, Dole, who is and was anything but a straight shooter, is foolish to put his head on the block and hope that his spin-doctors did a good enough job creating his "too honest to be president" image -- good enough to keep smart Democrat Senators like Bob Torricelli from exposing Dole for what he is -- a pawn of agribusiness and a co-conspirator to deliver the nation to Dwayne Andreas, Chairman of "Supermarket to the World," Banker to the Congress, and Official Airline to the Senate --Archer Daniels Midland Corp. (ADM) Now don't get me wrong. I admire Dwayne Andreas, much as I like the forthrightedness of Roger Tamraz. Both know what they want and both know how to buy it. The only thing is, Andreas know a bargain when he sees one and knows Andreas is an artist in closing the deal. He knows how to pick 'em, and unlike Tamraz, who got nothing from Clinton, Andreas got everything from Dole.

Dole is delusional enough to believe his own press, but not delusional in his confidence that his own campaign shenanigans will be overlooked by his former senate colleagues if for no other reason than he is a former senate colleague. And make no mistake about it, Republicans and Democrats unite to protect their own. So Dole's tottering up to the HIll from his split-level Watergate condominium to testify for Thompson shouldn't impress anyone. It certainly doesn't impress me. He'll get a free ride.

"Hi Dwayne, yeah I said a PLANE, not a BUS!"

Dole's been on the campaign take for his entire political life. His mentor - Dwayne Andreas who suceeeded in getting Dole to strong arm the Senate and the House into giving ADM what amounts to a billion dollars a year of your money to support its outrageous ethanol subsidies taught Dole well. Some say that the entire bottom line for ADM relies on these subsidies.

Back in my "youth," I recognized Andreas' terrific insight and sort of hitched my own wagon to his while representing ethanol importers who also received the federal tax breaks that Dole offered to Andreas on a silver platter. All the while Andreas cheated corn farmers, many of them in Dole's own state of Kansas, who supplied the raw materials for his syrup and ethanol cocktail. He made billions and kept their prices down, but what choice did they have -- ADM was one of the only games in town.

The only problem with my own scheme was that Andreas didn't want anyone else to mine for gold in what he considered his own personal money pit. I don't blame him. All those free Gulfstream trips for Dole and dozen key House members. All that campaign cash that he and his family had been cramming into briefcases since before Watergate and after. Yeah, Andreas deserved his monopoly, but we weren't going to let him take the whole pie. Or at least we thought we weren't. But Dole and Andreas who too cagey for words.

Dwayne had missed a key element of his ethanol tax legislation - bought and paid for with your money. In short, ethanol blending credits were linked to the combination of gasoline and alcohol -- not to where the alcohol came from. The problem? Dwayne had ridiculously high prices set for his mid-west alcohol, and while he was running around the world trying to buy up alcohol from Brazil, Central America and wherever else it was available, little guys like us cut better deals with foreign producers who began to hate ADM for its monopolistic control of their production and prices. We offered them more and still were able to undercut ADM's domestic price for ethanol. This burned up Andreas and he went to the mat.

Top make a long story short, Andreas got Dole to do an unbelievable hatchet job on us that was both illegal from a trade law perspective and immoral from any perspective. Dole contacted US officials in Brazil to track our ethanol shipments and tried to get the US Customs officials to declare them dutiable although no alcohol to be used for fuel carried the heavy tariffs the US applies to foreign booze - -the kind of ethanol you drink at your local pub.

Dole's attempt didn't work and his efforts to convince the Reagan White House to destroy small importers like us fell on deaf ears, especially after a long telegram I sent to President Reagan outlining the Andreas-Dole plot. I had supported Reagan myself, from the time I was 16. So, we thought we had won. Our ethanol - a tiny amount compared to ADM's production - entered the country legally and without duty. But Andreas, because he is the largest corn buyer in the world, turned to his trump card and strong-armed American Corngrowers -- a powerful Washington lobby -- to sue then Secretary of the Treasury James Baker in a feeble attempt to declare our cargo dutiable. All legal mind you. But the impact was devastating on small companies like ours. You see, we had to defend this specious suit - -we had to pay what would amount to millions in legal fees to defend James Baker in more than one court before we won. Dole and Andreas and their even higher priced lawyers knew we would eventually prevail.. The tactic -- bankrupt us with legal fees. It worked. My clients, small potatoes by ADM standards were destroyed by the cost of winning. Not only is no small ethanol importer/producer still operating that was around in the mid eighties, but several have had their families destroyed by the work of Andreas with the full cooperation and guidance of then Senator Bob Dole.

I tell this story as just one example of what Dole really is and what he represents. I don't blame Andreas. He was only doing the best job he could for his shareholders. He knew how to play. We weren't as accomplished. But Dole not only delivered your hard-earned tax dollars to mega-business, but mutilated smaller people for the opportunity. He's reprehensible, and that's kind.

Bob Dole, before he made his deal with the devil

So here we have old Bob Dole, a loser in every sense of the word -- a man who ruined others to get to the Senate and then rose on the Senate floor and named a bill, giving tens of millions in personal income tax breaks, after another family that bought him for it -- is now running to Fred Thompson and writing , "Recently, there have been some statements questioning my activities as a candidate and some that cast doubt on my integrity...While I do not believe that I personally participated in any questionable activity or personally violated any existing law, I am prepared to voluntarily come before your committee and submit to questions, under oath" The key word in this line - "personally." That oughta cover him.

This testimony was a deal cooked up between Dole, Thompson and Haley Barbour to mention a few. The goal - to "encourage" the President to follow Dole to the pulpit. But Bill Clinton isn't that stupid. Why would he appear before a Kangaroo Court like Thompson's committee which has devoted all its time - save a few days - to produce nothing more than a circus of innuendo and a totally irresponsible set of "revelations" against Democrats that proved nothing and most often made a fool of Thompson himself? Witness Thompson's opening remarks that he would prove China was at the root of Democrat financial skulduggery. Sure.

The President responded through an administration source, "Senator Dole can determine for himself if he needs to testify before the committee.The White House has cooperated fully and will continue to comply with requests for information from congressional committees, including producing over 115,000 documents. I am not aware of any pending requests for the president from the Senate committee."

Whether Dole will actually testify remains to be seen, but Thompson, as if he was surprised and delighted by Dole's offer, put out this claptrap,"I am very pleased that Sen. Dole has made this voluntary offer ... I join him in encouraging President Clinton to testify as well," he said. It's enough to make one barf.

Dole, who, as often is the case with aged men, is busy protecting his legacy and his fat paycheck from the law firm where he currently ""works" with his partners for big tobacco interests. But Dole is also protecting his wife Elizabeth "Liddy" Dole who often provokes nervous laughter on both sides of the aisle when mentioned as a potential Republican presidential candidate for 2000. Liddy, who presided over the Red Cross's near bankruptcy, thinks she would be a great choice as the first woman candidate for the Oval Office, but professionals know that's pie in the sky. Dole, who dumped his first wife and daughter for the more-attractive, and wealthier Elizabeth, can't see the forest for his darling tree -- and he does adore her.

Bob's boyhood home is quite a contrast to his Watergate and Bal Harbour condos. How'd he do it?

Hopefully Dole will testify whether the President does or not, and hopefully Bob Torricelli will have the guts to ask Dole how he got so wealthy over the past few decades earning an average federal salary under $75,000 a year. Torricelli ought to ask him about his luxurious Bal Harbour condo which houses neighbors like, who else, Dwayne Andreas -- the developer -- and other political luminaries like former DNC Chairman Bob Strauss now the head of the most powerful law/lobby firm in Washington who himself is another Andreas puppet .

Dole thinks he can defend against charges made by Senator John Glenn, the senior Democrat on the committee, who's let the cat out of the bag telling the world that Dole's campaign manager Scott Reed and deputy finance director Jo-Anne Coe have refused to submit to depositions by committee staffers. Their testimony and subsequent grilling by Democrats would be devastating to Dole so he's throwing up the smoke screen of his own cameo appearance to try and placate Glenn and the media who smells a big, dirty story revolving around the Dole camp and millions of dollars in contributions steered from its major donors to non-profit groups in the last weeks of the 1996 campaign. Why, because Dole was losing badly and the re-routing of funds allowed the Dole Campaign to hide big money without having to report it to the Federal Election Committee and may have offered donors tax breaks as well.

Dole's own words belie his guilt. He's careful choice of verbiage, "There have been countless charges and counter-charges, innuendo and suggestions of impropriety," Dole said. "Let me emphasize at the outset that I'm not passing judgment on anyone or any alleged illegal activity, nor have I made any public comments relative thereto." -- tells the story, "Not guilty"

Least of all himself.