Oh doesn't this get interesting. The two Ford execs who sat down with the extremist gay-hating organization to work out the secret deal, who do you think they were? Why, two former senior Bush administration officials. Aren't things getting interesting.
Two Ford officials sat down with the hate group last week to work out the deal (by the way, this is the seminal article on this entire issue, they're the guys who broke the story, and reveal that contrary to Ford's current lies, an entire deal was worked out with the gay-haters):
In a Nov. 29 meeting at AFA headquarters in Tupelo, MS, David Leitch, general counsel and vice president for Ford, and Ziad Ojakli, group vice president-Corporate Affairs, along with Dallas-area Ford dealer Jerry Reynolds, hammered out a deal.So who are these two boys, Leitch and Ojakli?
Ziad Ojakli
Ford group vice president-Corporate Affairs
From Open Secrets we learn that Mr. Ojakli is a big GOP donor - Ojakli was a Bush Pioneer fundraiser, who himself donated $3000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and $2000 for Bush's re-election campaign. He's also a senior former Bush administration official, serving as Deputy Assistant to the President, Legislative Affairs.Oh, but there's more on Ojakli. He's worked for the worst of the worst of the right-wing Christian-right-loving Republicans. From Ford's own bio on him:
Prior to joining the White House staff, Ojakli served as the Senate liaison for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and as Congressional liaison for Victory 2000 at the Republican National Committee....Dan Coats was the religious right's boy in the Senate. And Souder was just as bad in the House.
From 1995 to 1998, Ojakli served as chief of staff to Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) and was Souder's key political and policy advisor. Prior to that, he was a legislative assistant to Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), specializing in budget, tax, trade, energy and environmental issues.
David Leitch
Ford General Counsel, Vice President
Leitch was deputy general counsel to George Bush at the White House, and now is the general counsel at Ford. (Source: Ford's own press release.)Remember how Microsoft had all sorts of suspicious dealings with Ralph Reed at the time it embraced the religious right? Well, now we have Ford embracing bigotry and the deal is worked out by - who? - two senior (former) Bush White House officials. Surprise, surprise.
(Hat tip: All of this was discovered by a group of incredibly smart and earnest AMERICAblog readers who worked all of this out in the comments on the blog last night while the rest of us were asleep. Amazing.)
