Obama's Wife Has Connection to Wal-Mart

This has got to be the stupidest criticism of a presidential candidate to come along in a week (since Romney's wife gave to Planned Parenthood): Barack Obama is a hypocrite because a company where his wife is a director sells its wares to Wal-Mart.

As a fluent public speaker, independent-minded wife, devoted mother and professional woman, Michelle Obama has been hailed as an invaluable asset to her husband Barack's mission to capture the Democratic 2008 presidential nomination.

Yet, while her style and performance are winning plaudits on the campaign trail, a little-reported business interest of Mrs Obama's has opened her husband up to one of the criticisms that politicians fear most - the taint of hypocrisy.

She is taking a break from her main job, as a well-remunerated Chicago hospital executive, to campaign for her husband. But she has just been re-elected to the board of an Illinois food-processing company, a position she took up two years ago to gain experience of the private sector.

And the biggest customer for the pickles and peppers produced by Treehouse Foods is the retail giant Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation and the bête noire of American liberals, including Sen Obama, for its employment practices, most notably its refusal to recognise trade unions.

As the Illinois senator prepared to join the presidential fray late last year, he threw his weight behind the union-backed campaign against Wal-Mart. He declared that there was a "moral responsibility to stand up and fight" the company and "force them to examine their own corporate values".

Now I don't know how Treehouse Foods Board of Directors operates, but I doubt that the Board determines where to sell their products and even if it did, selling to Wal-Mart is smart business. I would wager that most of the consumer and food products industry sells to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. Not doing so may mean the difference between failure and success. That is called smart business.

If Planned Parenthood is the bogeyman of the GOP, then Wal-Mart is the boogeyman of the Democratic party.

Oh, let's not forget, Hillary Clinton sat on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart when her husband was Governor of Arksansas, home to Wal-Mart' corporate headquarters. I am not seeing cries of hypocrisy there--yet.