When Magic Backed Hillary, Did Money Buy Love?

What happened between Johnson's $2,300 contribution to Obama in March and his $4,600 donation to Clinton in August?

Over the summer, a seemingly unrelated series of events intervened.

In June, Johnson, who is an extraordinarily successful entrepreneur, began talks with billionaire Ron Burkle about forming a joint investment fund of $750 million or more to take advantage of the growing and lucrative markets in inner city and minority-owned businesses, according to Eric Holloman, president of Johnson's Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund.

Burkle has been one of Bill Clinton's closest friends and supporters. Burkle and Bill Clinton were often seen together in and around Los Angeles, and Clinton frequently stayed at Burkle's mansion, which was the scene of much-reported partying. Burkle gave Bill Clinton a lucrative consulting job as a senior advisor to his investment firm, Yucaipa Companies.

When Hillary announced, Burkle became a strong backer and encouraged Johnson to support her.

Now, spokesmen for both Burkle and Johnson flatly dispute that there is any connection whatsoever between the Burkle-Magic investment partnership and Magic's Hillary endorsement.

snip

Johnson's support for Hillary has been apparently unaffected by a separate development involving Bill Clinton and Burkle. In late September, well after Magic Johnson's Hillary endorsement and fundraiser, the relationship between Burkle and Bill Clinton was reportedly severely strained by a September 26 Wall Street Journal article detailing some of controversial dealings by Burkle's company, Yucaipa.

The WSJ story reported that a young Italian businessman had convinced Burkle and a Clinton aide to invest millions of dollars in a controversial and poorly-run venture buying up urban properties owned by the Catholic Church. Clinton, allegedly furious at Burkle, began the process of withdrawing from Yucaipa.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/01/when-magic-backed-hillary_n_79087.html

For the first time ever, I thought of that in the 'other' use for "Johnson" and thought "what a great name that must be"

/slow

if only his middle name was Dick.

Clinton is in it up to his neck.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article325033.ece

http://www.observer.com/node/32454

:think: