The Clinton camp faced a series of questions from reporters seeking to clarify what, exactly, is Penn's new role with the campaign.

"I appreciate the question, but I'm not going to answer it," said Howard Wolfson in a campaign call today.

He did, however the following example, tailored specially for his audience: "The difference would be between the editor-in-chief of your newspaper and somebody who plays an important role in your newspaper but isn't in charge," he said, adding that it was the difference "between somebody who is playing the key role and somebody who is playing an important role."

The Clinton camp also argued that Penn's actions were less bad than those made by Austan Goolsbee during last month's NAFTA flap, which prompted this response from the Obama camp:

"Even though Senator Clinton said she'd distance herself from her chief strategist for meeting with the Colombian government, we later found out that he's still very much part of her strategy team. The comparison Senator Clinton tried to make today is laughable, but also typical of a candidate who has said one thing but done another this entire campaign."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/08/mark-penns-clinton-camp-r_n_95656.html

This latest Clinton scandal continues to deepen. Clinton's main campaign honcho sort-of-kind-of resigned because of his lobbying firm's ties to promoting the Columbia trade deal, Clinton's campaign communication director — Wolfson — has links to lobbyists pushing the Columbia trade deal, and now we find out that Bill Clinton has taken some $800,000 from an organization pushing the very same flawed Columbian trade deal.

Pennsylvania's Governor and Uber-Clinton booster, Ed Rendell, said that Hillary Clinton should completely distance herself from Penn because of his ties to the Columbia trade fiasco. Maybe he thinks Hillary Clinton should do away with Bill Clinton too .. er … and apparently everyone else associated with her fast-fading presidential bid?

On Sunday evening, Sen. Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, resigned after it was revealed he was working (on the side) for the passage of a Colombia Free Trade Agreement that his candidate opposed.

But within the Clinton campaign, Penn is not the highest-ranking adviser with financial ties to groups and individuals supporting the passage of the measure.

Former President Bill Clinton has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars speaking on behalf of a Colombia-based group pushing the trade pact, and representatives of that organization tell The Huffington Post that the former president shared their sentiment.

In June 2005, Clinton was paid $800,000 by the Colombia-based Gold Service International to give four speeches throughout Latin America. Huffington Post

http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/?p=676

where does the buck stop in the Clinton campaign?

This is a great summary of how deep this goes.

To the best of my ability:

* 2005: Bill Clinton paid $800,000 to speak to Latin American audiences by a Colombia-based business investment organization that supports the Colombian trade agreement. On the trip, Clinton praised the Colombian and other trade agreements. He had supported the Colombian agreement since 2000.
* April 2007: Al Gore withdraws from an environmental conference in Miami to avoid appearing with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, widely criticized for human rights and labor abuses. Gore calls Uribe's record "troubling."
* April 2007: The Colombian government hires Glover Park Group, a lobbying firm founded by Clinton administration officials, to help win passage of a free trade agreement with the United States. Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's current communications director, was a principal employee and currently retains an equity stake in the firm.
* May 2007: The Colombian government hires Burson-Marsteller, a public affairs firm headed by Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, to support the free trade agreement.
* May 2007: Obama joins Chris Dodd and six other Senators in expressing "grave concern regarding the infiltration of important Colombian state institutions by terrorists and drug traffickers" to Sec'y of State Rice (via Think on These Things).
Clinton and Uribe, June 2007
* June 2007: Bill Clinton accepts "Colombia is passion" award from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "We need to remember that we are friends," said the former president. "We need to remember that we want to share a common future."
* March 31: Penn meets with Colombian government to push trade deal.
* April 2: Colombian President Uribe attacks Barack Obama for opposing the trade deal.
* April 4: Penn's meeting becomes public. The Clinton campaign says Penn's meeting was unrelated to the campaign, but the Colombian government does not corroborate that account.
* April 5: The Colombian government announces it is firing Penn.
* April 6: Penn loses his title with Clinton campaign, though the extent to which his influence will diminish is unclear.

What more is out there? And given the Clintons' deep organizational and personal ties to Colombia, does anybody really believe that mark Penn's 3/31 meeting was entirely apolitical?

Finally, a note to keep this in perspective. As Ben Smith notes, prominent Obama supporters like Tom Daschle are advocates of the Colombian deal, and on balance, Obama -- like Clinton -- seems to be a proponent of more trade, not less -- although he has been steadfast in his support for labor and environmental standards.

The key difference is that Obama himself does not seem to have any personal financial ties to Colombia, certainly none such as the link between Bill Clinton and Alvaro Uribe, and neither do his top campaign aides.

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/04/something-stink.html