RAHM TIED TO BP'S PR FIRM?

I know it's almost laughable to think about but at some point, even the blind Obamautomaton left in this country has got to wake up to their being utterly snowed by this act. After the BP rig explosion, we learned that Obama was BP's largest recipient of campaign money. Now it's learned that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is quite cozy with BP's main PR firm - Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

Mark Hemingway at the Washington Examiner also links to an article from the Chicago Tribune from February 24, 2009 in which it was reported that Emanuel was living in a D.C. apartment owned by the firm's Stanley Greenberg, who also happens to be married to a Democratic Representative from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro.

From the Tribune piece last year:

WASHINGTON— White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's Washington lodging arrangements, a rent-free basement room in a Capitol Hill home owned by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) and her pollster husband, have inspired debate among tax experts and in Republican-leaning parts of the blogosphere.

One issue is whether Emanuel, who served in the House with DeLauro until early January, should have listed the room either as a gift or as income on his congressional financial disclosure forms. Emanuel's disclosure filings contain no mention of his use of the room.

A murkier question is whether Emanuel has a tax liability for the arrangement. The matter may have particular sensitivity in the early days of an Obama administration in which at least four picks for high posts have had confirmations delayed or derailed by tax irregularities.

A further complexity involves DeLauro's husband, Stan Greenberg, an old friend of Emanuel's whose firm had done polling work for an Emanuel campaign committee and for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which Emanuel headed in 2005 and 2006.

After putting Obama's receipt of so much BP campaign cash and Emanuel's cozy rent-free relationship with the head of BP's PR firm in the context of this rig explosion, we have quite the subplot developing. It's interesting that the longer this oil flow continues, the more connected to BP this administration appears to be.

h/t to Free Republic