« Arizona or San Francisco Values | Main | Kagan and the Right to Bear Arms »
May 14, 2010
Michelle Obama, Forbidden Food Profiteer
Posted by Dave Blount at May 14, 2010 9:45 AM
The hypocrisy of the Bitter Half taking the lead in the campaign against politically incorrect food goes beyond her hefty hindquarters:
While she crusades for organic foods and puts government pressure on corporations to stop marketing fast food and junk food to children, Mrs. Obama herself profited from the very same processed food industry she now demonizes.
In June 2005, a few months after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Obama hustled a seat on the corporate Board of Directors of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. Despite zero experience, the food-processing company put her on its audit and nominating and corporate governance committees. For her on-the-job training and the privilege of putting her name and face on their literature, the company forked over $45,000 in 2005 and $51,200 in 2006 to Mrs. Obama — as well as 7,500 TreeHouse stock options worth more than $72,000 for each year.
The chairman of the TreeHouse Foods board, Sam K. Reed, was a top executive at Kellogg's and Keebler Foods, home of that great menace to children, the Keebler Elf. Before that, he headed up Mother's Cake and Cookie Company. The conglomerate sells cheese sauces, Cremora non-dairy creamer, instant soup, puddings and powdered soft drink mixes. Hardly the stuff of Mrs. Obama's new vision of nutritional paradise. TreeHouse is also a leading supplier of pickles used in the burgers of evil fast food chain McDonald's — exactly the kind of corporate restaurants Mrs. Obama is now targeting in her war on urban "food deserts."
The First Klingon only hopped off this particular gravy train when it became necessary as part of the war on Wal-Mart, TreeHouse's biggest customer.
Reed shouldn't be surprised by the knife in his back. If B. Hussein's lavishly generous backers at Goldman Sachs and BP can go under the bus for the sake of political theater, why not TreeHouse Foods?
Maybe not the ideal food fascist.
On a tip from Byron.
