The president’s BCGB (best Chicago golfing buddy)
University of Chicago Medical Center top executive Dr. Eric Whitaker is a busy, busy man.
Here’s a rundown of his schedule since his Chicago pal Barack Obama moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:
*Golfed with Obama on his December 2008 Hawaii vacation;
*Played hoops with Obama during a three-day getaway to Chicago in February 2009;
*Attended the Obamas’ first state dinner in November 2009;
*Traveled with Obama to Norway in December 2009 for Nobel Peace Prize ceremony;
*Golfed with Obama on his December 2009 Hawaii vacation;
*Golfed with Obama on his 2009 vacation to Martha’s Vineyard;
*Golfed with the prez at Andrews Air Force Base during his vacation two weeks ago;
*Golfed with Obama on his 2010 Martha’s Vineyard vacay this weekend.
When he does have time to actually do work related to the medical field, it’s to lobby on behalf of Obamacare, natch.
Perhaps Obama’s playmate should be paying more attention at home.
As the Sun-Times reported in May:
E-mails and other records of Dr. Eric Whitaker — one of President Obama’s best friends — have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
The investigation involves “faith-based initiatives” and health-awareness campaigns funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health when Whitaker ran the agency for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to copies of subpoenas obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
Obama has said he recommended Whitaker for that job, which Whitaker landed in April 2003. The president’s friend resigned in October 2007 to join Obama’s wife, Michelle, as an executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
On Friday, Whitaker defended his work as the state’s former top health official, saying he developed “new methods” to help “African-American and other minority communities” get better medical care.
Longtime readers will recall that Whitaker took over First Lady Michelle Obama’s patient-dumping, crony-rewarding scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center dressed up as a minority health initiative.
Background on the Obama-Whitaker-Rezko connection here. Refresher:
Whitaker’s agency also got caught up in scandal. He oversaw the budget of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves medical construction projects. Rezko and his associates controlled that board, which they used to solicit kickbacks and payoffs, according to testimony at Rezko’s trial.
Rezko was convicted. Whitaker, who said he wasn’t involved in the board’s day-to-day operations, was never accused of any wrongdoing.
“During my time as director of IDPH, I received four or five calls from Tony Rezko seeking my support for and attendance at the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital charity event,” Whitaker said. “After my employment interview, I never had a conversation with Mr. Rezko about the” health department or the planning board.
Whitaker left the state payroll a year ago and joined Obama’s wife Michelle as a high-ranking executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center. When he was hired, U. of C. was seeking permission to expand its children’s hospital — one of five expansions the university sought from the state while Whitaker was health director. All were approved by the planning board. Whitaker and the U. of C. said he had nothing to do with those approvals.
“Whether and to what extent Dr. Whitaker had anything to do with the [approval] process while at IDPH was and is totally irrelevant to his hiring by or his work at the Medical Center,” wrote Susan S. Sher, a medical center attorney.
Sher is now Michelle Obama’s White House chief of staff.
Keeping it all in the Chicago family…
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Does this bho and mo have ONE single person around them that is not as crooked as a snake? I will answer my question with a great big NO!
L
We will need thousands of replacement lawyers in the 2012 DOJ to prosecute all CHICAGO CRIME INC syndicates.
Obowmao: It’s okay, he’s my personal proctologist/ventriloquist in case TOTUS has a malfunction!
These folks are beginning to aggrevate my last frayed nerve.
DanMan: My brother-in-law has a favorite t-shirt that reads, “When I got up this morning, I had one nerve left, and you’re getting on it!”
Crime Inc.
I wonder if Whitaker gives Obama golf lessons? If he does, maybe he should stick to medicine, cause he can’t teach golf. One would think, with all those golf outings, the good doctor would do some serious tweaking.
I can see why the president doesn’t want cameras aroung during his golf outings. His golf form sucks to the point of being laughable. His form breaks down as soon as he moves the club…Comical, really!
If SNL had some cojones, they could do a real funny sketch of Obama, the golfing spastic. Sadly, this president is off limits to mockery from left-leaning comedians.
Shellie’s scheme to dump poor people…
coupled with Barack’s murder of the DC charter schools program…
tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about the care for the poor these people LIVE…not give lip-service to.
Communities have suffered from their “organizing”. We all know which organ was in use…
The Chicago way.
These Obamas make the Clinton’s look like George and Martha Washington.
What do you expect when you elect a mobster?
Can we now call the president the Putz in Chief?
Officially, I mean?
Ughh….what ELSE are we going to discover about these sleazy pols and their Chicago pals. This stuff makes me ill.
I can’t help but think…
What the hey…..
Are They Lovers or what???!
you learn something new every day!
Obowmao (sheepishly): He’s a doctor, he kknows things, … sexual things.
I keep staring at that picture of Obama and Whitaker and thinking “Gawd, I’ll bet that porker’s wearing black socks and sandals.”
He looks a lot like a younger Jeremiah Wright.
Good grief. The sleaze is getting so deep around Obama that it’s a wonder people like Williams don’t suffocate when they get down on their kneepads.
obamacare = patient dumping scheme.
The only way they will ever be able to reduce costs is to stop paying for care. Doctors, hospitals, medical devices.
there are ways to provide better care more affordably across a wide number of people. But paying for and requiring people to buy insurance is the wrong way to go about it. You are making the problem worse and not better.
The answer is to flood the system with supply. Doctors trained in the military working at clinics available to everyone for a fee. paid for through funding for the VA.
the amount you pay for health care should be related to how sick you are, not how wealthy you are.
THAT is how you lower the cost of health care while maintaining and even improving the quality.
But nobody asks me.
Keep the subpoenas coming. Put all these crooks under oath. The more these people have to talk, the more corruption will be exposed.
Just as you can’t “un-ring” a bell, the Federal government can’t “un-screw” health care. It’s up to privatization to fix anything this messed up.
Obama also golfs frequently
http://emptysuit.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/obama-golf-outings/ with Former Presidential Candidate John F. Kerry’s “Chief of Stuff” Marv.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/28/us/part-butler-and-part-buddy-aide-keeps-kerry-running.html?pagewanted=1
Marvin Nicholson Jr. is now a White House Trip Director.
Does it seem strange to anybody that we never hear of President Obama golfing with any old friends from Harvard, Columbia or Occidental?
The only way justice will find these people is if they get hit by lightning or drilled by a random meteor. The American criminal justice system is comatose.
Al Capone lives! Someone call Whoraldo…
Maisy, that was my first thought as well….
LSD or ‘shrooms?
One of those new methods was apparently making sure some African-Americans got huge salaries for unnecessary jobs, so they can afford medical care along with piano and dance lessons.
And by African-American, I don’t mean Kenyon, I mean people born here to people born here….
does anyone do peyote anymore, Hangfire? Are we just showing our age?
That would explain why no one commented on my ‘orange sunshine’ post a while back.
waaaahhh!
Comeon guys!! You would want your BGGB to always golf with you, too, if he’s the only one who grants you mulligans galore. He also carries the only pen with erasable ink they use for Barry’s scorecard.
… serves on the Board of Directors of the The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (also archived here in case they try to scrub it) with none other than…
… and there’s also…
…who is the Chairman of the company that gave the Obamas their sweetheart mortgage on their Chicago home.
It appears that Chicago Council on Global Affairs is a “culture of corruption”… a case study in the Marxist infiltration of corporate america and academia.
Sheesh, what a schedule! Does guy actually DO ANYTHING at the U of Chicago? Collecting Pell Grant money doesn’t count.