Why Is Blue State Digital In Iraq?

Their client list reads like a Who's Who of Democrat politics:

Democratic National Committee
Obama for America
Richardson for President
Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
Senator John Kerry (D-MA)
Bill Thompson for Mayor (New York City)
More than 20 other Federal and state electoral campaigns
Organized Labor
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
AFL-CIO
Communication Workers of America (CWA)
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters

To be fair, there were some heavier hitters along on a recent trip to Iraq, one said to be "serious" about generating government contracts. Still, as Heritage points out, BSD looks like a pretty clear example of cronyism 2.0 on the part of the Democrats. All of the key players at BSD are right off the Democrat campaign bus. It would be a good idea to see what, if any, no bid contracts flow out of this little side trip of capitalism apparently intended to pay back some campaign debts of a sort.

The trip, however, is way serious.

The idea is to use the brains of this small collective to give ideas to Iraqi government officials, companies and users that will help it rebuild. Iraq is short on the mojo that widespread internet can bring and the fast-track economic jolt that entrepreneurs feed on. Who knows that stuff better than a contingent of internet goombahs heavy on the Google juice and includes the guy who thought up Twitter?

That latter would be Jack Dorsey, and the Googlers are Kannan Pashupathy (who set up a number of its international offices, Ahmad Hamzawi (who heads engineering in the Middle East and North Africa) and Hunter Walk, the product head of YouTube. Other founder types include Scott Heiferman of Meetup, and Jason Liebman of Howcast. 

The rest of the delegation consists of Raanan Bar-Cohen of Automattic (WordPress blogging), David Nassar of Blue State Digital, and ATT's Richard Robbins. Cohen hopes that a few of the companies will follow up and work out some technology exchanges or collaborations with Iraqis, beginning a process that will play at least some part in bootstrapping the bottomed-out situation into something approaching a 21st Century economy.

Comments

[Diggs]

Good for them. There isn't a lefty in America who doesn't think that they could have done a better job in Iraq than did Bush. Now they get to put their money where their mouth is. Having done three tours there myself, I know how difficult everything is in Iraq, and I believe that more than one of these "best and brightest" will come back a little more humble, and quite a bit more understanding of just how tough it is to do anything in Iraq. They may even have a little more respect for us soldiers who have had to spend years of our lives there.

[blaster]

Their clients also include all of us - seems they got a sole-source contract to run WhiteHouse.gov.

Interesting that campaign software runs our official White House website, no?

[sfcmac]

Oh, this is delicious irony. The same group of frothing moonbats who had aneurisms over fighting Islamic terrorism on its own turf, is now investing in the success.

[Peg C.]

I would expect to see huge and confiscatory taxes get imposed soon on the Iraqi people. Also, huge taxes on and demonization of their #1 industry, Big Oil.

Can gay marriage and educational brainwashing of Iraqi children over global warming and the evils of religion, men and business be far behind?

Well, Iraq now has democracy of sorts and it is the right of all democratic nations to give power to the left and lose their minds and their country.

[Peg C.]

Yeah, sfcmac, wonder if Harry Reid knows about this or was part of the contingent involved, considering he called Iraq such a failure?

[John]

Hi -

Interesting choice of acronyms. In the financial industry, a common term for folks, invariably men, who are extremely self-confident to the point of arrogance, without a proven track record that might justify such confidence, is also BSD.

But it means Big Swinging D*ck.

Wonder if the choice of acronym was deliberate...seems to be. :-)

[Yehudit]

No-bed contracts like their nemesis Halliburton .... Leftist outrage for me but not for thee.

[Swell528]

Geez, how come the thought of the Iraqi masses suddenly having access to Youtube, makes me squeamish.

[Xerocky]

"Oh, this is delicious irony. The same group of frothing moonbats who had aneurisms over fighting Islamic terrorism on its own turf, is now investing in the success."

Is this the final admission from the moonbats that the war in Iraq is going well, well enough to believe in Iraq as an economy? Unlike what the One said before the surge was implimented, that it would just make things worse.

Is this the "worse" that he was talking about?