While I’m never surprised to find out how close politicians and big corporations always seem to be, my disgust never lessens. In the case of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, his corporate relationship with Perdue (yes, the chicken company) is particularly absurd.
According to 70 pages of emails obtained by the national consumer group Food & Water Watch, Governor O’Malley and Perdue, specifically Perdue’s chief counsel Herb Frerichs, are pretty tight.
“These emails show the darks side of corporate power in politics. In Maryland’s case, Governor O’Malley is clearly compromised by a cozy relationship with Perdue on issues pertaining to agriculture and the Bay’s pollution problems,” Food & Water Watch’s Executive Director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement.
Just how close is this relationship?
One email from November 5, 2011 shows Frerichs criticizing Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Earl “Buddy” Hance because of his stance on the manure-to-energy issue. O’Malley’s response to the criticism was “I’m guessing you don’t have the personal email of governors of DE or VA [Delaware and Virginia], so let me know when Buddy can/should be doing more to help you push stuff.” On November 17, on the very date O’Malley issued a scathing letter criticizing the University of Maryland Law Clinic’s involvement in a case against Perdue, Frerichs sent an email simply saying, “Very nice.”
I wonder who will be buttering O'Malley's bread if he decides to make a run for the White House, as some are now predicting.
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