Shocker! Obama Political Director 'Forgot' He Was on SEIU Payroll Last Year

Just imagine the buzz and hubbub surrounding this scandal if the JournoList were still alive.

A former top official for a huge New York union who is now the White House political director failed to disclose more than $37,000 in income from the union last year, it was reported yesterday.

As the former public-affairs executive for Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Patrick Gaspard earned $37,191 in carried-over pay while on the White House payroll.

He failed to disclose the income on financial-disclosure forms, Politico reported. Where arrangements for payment by a former employer must be listed on the form, he checked a box indicating he had nothing to report.

The discrepancy was caught by California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a letter to the White House, he told Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina of the unstated income.

"As I am sure you are aware, there are very specific limitations on the outside earned income of presidential appointees," Issa wrote.

The administration downplayed Gaspard's failure to include the income on this and last year's disclosure forms. White House spokesman Bill Burton told Politico that the political director was in the process of correcting the forms to reflect that he did have an agreement for severance.

"We have made the small administrative change to this year's and last year's forms to indicate that part of the final payout to Patrick reflected in their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199," Burton said.

Gaspard is a key player in the Obama White House, which maintains deep ties to labor unions, especially the service-industries' union. He worked for nearly a decade for SEIU 1199 before joining Obama's campaign.

According to his disclosure forms, Gaspard earned $11,550 working on Obama's transition team and made $172,200 last year as director of the Office of Political Affairs.

It was from that post that he met last September with Gov. Paterson and urged him not to seek re-election.

Is there anyone mulling a run for office Team Obama hasn't leaned on?

You may recall Gaspard's name from this story from an item we noted last fall.

Critics also accuse the Working Families Party of having a long association with the troubled activist group, ACORN. Bertha Lewis, ACORN's CEO, is one of the party's co-founders. The New York Times reported this month that "Patrick Gaspard, the White House political director, worked with ACORN in New York to set up the Working Families political party and sat on the party's board with Ms. Lewis."

ACORN and Obama, perfect together.

Speaking of the late unlamented JournoList, I wonder how tight Gaspard is with this fellow? Worth also noting is where this pimple-faced puke just landed.

Much more here on the deep ties between Obama, Gaspard, Lewis, SEIU and ACORN.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Barack-lash: Obama Slams Paterson For Dragging Him Into Racial Mess

A day after the whiny David Paterson moaned about the media being racist, Barack Obama's aides fretted about being dragged into the fracas. Maybe they noticed his poll ratings began plummeting right about the time Obama injected himself into the Henry Louis Gates fiasco. Hey, once you start dealing from the racial deck, don't be surprised someone else also likes to play.

President Obama's aides were so furious that Gov. Paterson dragged him into a rant about racism that they sent a message sharply criticizing the governor's comments just hours after he made them, The Post has learned.

Aides to Obama were angered by Paterson's tirade on liberal talk-radio station WWRL on Friday, sources said.

Paterson blamed his political woes on racially slanted coverage and predicted the president would be the next "victim" of biased media.

Obama's team delivered a pointed message to Paterson within hours of the morning broadcast, multiple sources said.

It came in a call from White House political director Patrick Gaspard, who has deep ties to the New York political scene, to Larry Schwartz, the governor's first deputy secretary.

Gaspard wanted to know "why [Paterson] was dragging the president into" his troubles, said one source.

But although Obama's aides were unhappy, the sources said, the conversation was not hostile.

Obama, who still enjoys popularity in the polls despite taking some hits on the health-care issue, has rarely touched directly on issues of race. He won election by a wide margin with support across demographic lines and broad support among white voters.

"I'm not surprised" that his advisers were displeased, said one Democratic insider, adding that Gaspard is a fiercely loyal adviser who has been monitoring the situation in New York.

Paterson is facing growing calls from union leaders and others to reconsider his chances of winning election in 2010.

Paterson, New York's first black governor, is suffering historically low popularity. He blamed his and Obama's problems on a white-dominated media that he said had embarked on an attack campaign.

"My feeling is it's being orchestrated, it's a game, and people who pay attention know that," he said.

He compared his troubles to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the nation's only other black governor, then brought in the president.

"The next victim on the list -- and you see it coming -- is President Barack Obama," he said, citing his efforts to change health care.

Paterson, meanwhile, was hobnobbing with some very white people in the very white Hamptons, including the mother of celebutard Paris Hilton. Must suck hanging around all those rich white people.