Obama, in ’05 Investing, Took Same Path as Donors

[Herman Munster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/us/politics/07obama.html?ref=us

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The most recent financial disclosure form for Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination in 2008, said yesterday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.

The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Mr. Obama’s broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.

[Colobo]

1. Based on the reading

There is no real issue here. As soon as the senator realized there could be some conflict of interest, he sold the shares (at a net loss).

If anything, this shows there's actually nothing on Obama...

[Mass]

2. Except that he sold these stocks at a loss, what is exactly the problem here?\nt