This diary is wrong for the simple reason that for all intents and purposes, Penn is continuing on in his current role.

If Clinton was not Bush-esque with her loyalty, Penn should have been fired many months ago.  And by fired, I don't mean continuing on in the same job with a different title, but fired.  Like, no longer working for the campaign.

Well then what about this article:
HRC Colombia ties don't stop with Penn
By: Eamon Javers
April 7, 2008 07:21 PM EST

Mark Penn isn't the only Hillary Rodham Clinton supporter on the wrong side of the Colombia trade agreement.

The Democratic-leaning advocacy firm the Glover Park Group, former home to Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, signed a $40,000 per month contract with the government of Colombia in April of 2007 to promote the very agreement that Clinton now rails against on the presidential campaign trail.

That means Glover Park Group was arguing the same position on the free trade agreement as has Penn, the contentious Clinton strategist and Burson-Marsteller chief executive who lost his campaign job over the weekend after The Wall Street Journal revealed that he'd met with Colombian officials to plot strategy on the pact.

Several other Glover Park employees have deep connections with the Clintons, including founding partner Joe Lockhart, who served as the White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Joel Johnson, who was a senior communications adviser in the Clinton White House.

Six employees of Glover Park Group contributed a total of nearly $20,000 to Clinton's campaign in 2007, according to data kept by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Wolfson, who is set to take over many responsibilities from the departing Penn, resigned from Glover Park last year to avoid conflicts of interest but retains an equity interest in the firm.

The tangled web of connections on the trade issue inside the Clinton camp illustrates the thin line in Washington between private and political advocacy.

Top campaign aides often spend their off-election years inside large firms with a complex array of clients. The benefit of such arrangements is that a party or candidate's political brain-trust remains largely intact and ready to assemble quickly for the next political battle.

Republicans have trotted down this path for years. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's campaign is led by current and former lobbyists, some of whom are connected to such political boogiemen as subprime lenders.

But it's a trickier course for Democrats since their candidates often adopt populist themes that can conflict with a corporate client list.

Indeed, the latest Clinton brouhaha is a classic example of that.

The New York senator is using an anti-trade message to win over working class voters in Pennsylvania, a presidential primary most observers believe she must win big on April 22 to stay competitive with Democratic challenger Barack Obama, who also opposes the deal.

"We've got to have new trade policies before we have new trade deals," Clinton said last week. "That includes no trade deal with Colombia while violence against trade unionists continues in that country."

To avoid tarnishing either candidates or clients, many advisers take on voluntary campaign roles so the two can't be directly linked. Others seek to distance themselves from their private employers while working in the public arena. And a few, like Penn, try to walk a tightrope by keeping both jobs at the same time.

Over the weekend, Penn tripped. After taking a break from Clinton's anti-trade campaign to meet with his pro-trade Colombian clients, both parties dropped him.

At the time Glover Park got involved in the Colombia trade issue, Clinton's position on trade was less clear.

As it signed its contract last spring, Congressional Democrats seemed to have struck a deal with the White House to push it and three trade deals through Congress. That subsequently fell apart after labor leaders objected.

At about the same time, Wolfson's leave of absence from Glover Park became effective.

He and his wife realized income of between $1 million and $5 million from selling part of their equity stake in Glover Park Group in November of 2006.

But the couple still maintains an equity stake in the firm valued at from $500,000 to $1 million, according to a recent Capitol Hill financial disclosure filing.

Wolfson's wife, Terri McCullough, is the chief of staff to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

In an e-mail to Politico, Wolfson said "I took a leave from the firm last year and have no client contact and receive no salary from the firm." Several Wolfson allies, who declined to be named, argued that his distant relationship with Glover Park Group was far different from Penn's ongoing involvement at Burson-Marsteller.

According to the Glover Park Group contract, which was disclosed to the U.S. Department of Justice last year, the firm was to work with ProExport Colombia, an entity of the Colombian Government Trade Bureau, in developing a strategy to promote the free trade agreement.

The contract called for Glover Park to identify the key concerns of members of Congress, develop a comprehensive government relations strategy, and pinpoint reporters, academics, and business leaders who could help make Colombia's pro-free trade argument, all in close coordination with Colombian government officials.

The contract was set for five months, beginning on April 2, 2007. But it is not clear from public documents whether this is an ongoing effort.

Glover Park's report on the lobbying was to be addressed directly to the Colombian minister of trade and the Colombian ambassador to the United States, among other officials.

The contract was signed by Carl Smith, who is Glover Park's CEO and was previously chief of staff for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

Smith declined to comment for the record.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

I cannot believe we have a diary showing how Hillary firing Penn is a great example of leadership

ESPECIALLY

after I just posted a dairy that said he isn't fired, at the most he was demoted. wow

Why did she keep the bozo as chief strategist so long? He clearly was doing an awful job for her.

The bad press from this story is just beginning.  This seems to be the talk on all the political shows tonight.  This plus the untrue story of the woman who died because she was uninsured and denied health care.  She is losing credibility right in front of our eyes!

shoud be baned. The diarist wrote this hit piece then doesn't even bother to respond to any of the comments. I don't understand. If  post a diary I would assume you want to start a conversation???

Hillary's refusal to fire Penn, and his anti-labor firm, will increase the SEIU and Teamster involvement in PA.

Her poor handling of the Penn "non-firing" is getting play all night on MSM.

Perception is reality, and the reality is HRC WILL NOT WIN PA by double digits.

Obama lost me as far back when he first got in the Senate, started bashing Governor Dean, refused to shake his hand in Chicago and said ", "As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us.”  

Then proceded to vote against everything he claimed he was supporting.

For 2 years he voted to keep the war going, he voted to Reauthorize the Patriot Act, he voted for Condi Rice, he campaigned for Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont and said he was his "mentor".

....hmmm, funny, everyone Obama campaigned for, they lost, Lieberman, Pederson in AZ, Harold Ford Jr.  ....not a good track record.

But Obama, just continued his hypocrisy and now, the tactics he's taken on this election, unforgivable, and I haven't even gotten to his poor policy and misleading positions like having up to 80,000 troops through 2010...Gee, when will he decided to bring them home?

And just wait.  

You DO know that Mark Penn's been contracting with the Colombian government for over ONE YEAR now, don't you?  That makes for ONE YEAR full of conflicting interest.  Swift action indeed.

why Clinton didn't get rid of Penn awhile ago, especially since other campaign staffers were not satisfied with him for quite some time.  It's not a good decision to let your chief strategist keep his day job of a lobbyist, especially one whose agenda happens to be completely opposite from yours.

"On NAFTA, Goolsbee suggested that Obama is less about fundamentally changing the agreement and more in favour of strengthening/clarifying language on labour mobility and environment and trying to establish these as more "core" principles of the agreement."

That is the exact line on NAFTA from the disputed memo written about Goolsbee's meeting with the Canadians. Nowhere does it characterize his position on NAFTA as just campaign rhetoric. This characterization of his position on NAFTA is consistent with the one he gave in one of the last debates, that he didn't want to repeal it, just change it to be more fair.

Earlier in the memo it says this: "He was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy."

This is the passage people have seized upon, but note it doesn't relate to NAFTA. Not only that, it's wrong. Senator Obama has never advocated a protectionist position, that is more in line with a Republican characterization of his position, and Senator Clinton's I might add. In reality he has consistently said he believes in trade, markets, and capitalism but that trade needs to be fair to American workers and corporations.

I also don't buy this idea that Senator Obama's criticism of her NAFTA position as somehow below the belt. All public evidence shows that she was a supporter of NAFTA, worked actively to lobby for it's passage, held meetings, etc in it's favor. Now Clinton administration insiders have come forward to say no, no really in private she didn't like it, though even in doing this the reasoning differs. Some say she didn't like the agreement and it's effect on workers, but others say she didn't want anything getting in the way of the healthcare debate. In the end it's unknowable what the true reasoning was.

Honestly though to me this is all a tactical mistake by her. She could have easily sidestepped all this problem by saying Yes I agreed with NAFTA and worked on it's passage but since then we have seen evidence of problems with it that need to be changed. Why she didn't take this route mystifies me.

Why is the Clinton strategy, including that played by supporters, to diminish a mistake while pointing to something Obama has done?

Is Clinton not accountable for anything?  This is a CLEAR conflict of interest.  She has a person on her campaign staff working to pass a trade agreement that she opposes.  Tell me...should Colombia or Clinton expect his best effort?  Because he can't serve both equally well, on this issue.