Obama's Wal-Mart connection: Wife served on board of big Wal-Mart supplier

As I noted earlier today, Barack Obama pounced on Hillary Rodham Clinton in last nights CNN debate for serving on the board of directors of Wal-Mart in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the successful company the Left loves to hate.

But attacking the world's largest corporation has a way of producing blowback, as Obama knows.

Shortly before Thanksgiving Day in 2006, then-unannounced presidential candidates John Edwards and Barak Obama took part in a teleconference sponsored by Wake Wal-Mart, and advocacy group financed by the United Food & Commercial Workers.

About a week later, Edwards was embarrassed when it was discovered that through a staffer he tried circumvent the long lines and essentially uses his prominent status to get a just-released PlayStation 3 for one of his kids--from a local Wal-Mart store.

A few weeks later, it was Obama's turn to look like a hypocrite when it was revealed that his wife Michelle was a board member, making $51,200 a year, for TreeHouse Foods, whose biggest customer is Wal-Mart. She elected to the board five months after Barack was sworn-in to the Senate.

Last May, while Michelle was still serving on the board of Treehouse, the senator boasted about Wal-Mart, "I will not shop there."

Eight days later, "citing increased demands on her time," Michelle Obama resigned from the board of directors of TreeHouse. But the heat was on the Obamas by then--he was being called a hypocrite.

Several times in Obama's The Audacity of Hope, he takes left-hooks at Wal-Mart. That book was written, and published, while Michelle Obama served on Treehouse's board.

Beware of blowback, Barack.

UPDATE: January 23: Taking a different look at things, Balloon Juice is also critical of Obama attacking Wal-Mart.

Thanks for the links: Backyard Conservative
Dr. X's Free Associations

Technorati tags: Obama politics Barack Obama politics 2008 laborelection Wal-Mart John Edwards Unions business Hillary Clinton Hillary books