"Declaring independence from a 'broken system' by breaking a promise . . ." [UPDATED]

...to run a publicly financed campaign.  "Obama hopes you'll care more about the former than the latter," writes ABC's Jake Tapper.  (H/T:  Simon at Stubborn Facts)

This is Obama's answer to the question on public financing in the Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire distributed to all candidates last fall.  It seems to me he was leaving himself a lawyerly loophole even then, by saying that the move had to be bilateral or (implicitly) the deal was off. 

My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (r- AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

You can look noble calling for a "fundraising truce" knowing full well that a presidential campaign is all-out war and your opponent will never agree to it.  Then you can blame him, or her, for requiring you to match or surpass his or her brass-knuckle fund-raising and 527 tactics.

Tapper reports:

[T]he McCain campaign [...] argues that Obama did not discuss this or try to negotiate at all with the McCain campaign, despite writing that he would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

The Obama campaign disputes this. Obama campaign counsel Bob Bauer met with McCain campaign counsel Trevor Potter and, according to Obama spox Bill Burton, Potter "immediately made it clear there was no basis for further discussion," that they weren't interested in any sort of agreement. "McCain and the RNC had spent months raising and spending money for the general election, and their basic attitude was 'You'll catch up,'" Burton says, suggesting that the Republicans were also turning a blind eye to the activities of 527s.

This is, naturellement, politics as usual.  The underdog will go for public financing in an attempt to limit what a front-runner can raise and spend.  When the underdog suddenly becomes fundraising top dog, those limits suddenly don't look so hot.  Obama can claim with some justification that he's raising an unprecedented amount of money from $200-or-less donors (if "broken promise!" is the right's spin, the left's is that  "Obama's army of small donors[...] represents a far more compelling challenge to the status quo than anything McCain is proposing"), but do you think that means he's going to turn away the big ones?  Rezko, anyone?

As I've said before, I find Obama's skill at politics-as-usual sourly comforting; it suggests that he might actually be tough and sly enough to govern.  But the glaze of hypocritical piety that goes over it gets reformulated for every new generation, and it seems to get harder to stomach every time around.  Must be because it's made with high fructose corn syrup these days -- the corn grown in Illinois, of course.

The ultimate point is that all the outrage and sanctimony is a Noh drama staged more or less artfully to win over the innocent citizen who takes it all to heart.  Candidates are much more like lawyers making a case to a naïve jury and then going out afterwards to have lunch together.  We must constantly remind ourselves not to take these moves and declarations at face value, but to take a step back and judge how well the players are playing the game.  That's not to say the stakes aren't very, very high.

UPDATE:  Sullivan:  "I never doubted his cunning or his charisma. It's the combo that's so lethal."

Downright Kennedyesque, too.  Trouble is, we never got a full-fledged chance to find out what kind of presidents they'd make.  Some will say three years is enough to close the book on JFK, and his incomplete record was mixed.

Comments

[eusto]

While Obama may have broken a promise, McCain may now be breaking the law. He opted into public financing for the primary because he was broke. When he became the presumptive nominee, he just declared that he was no longer bound to stay within the limits that the primary opt-in required. At the time, the FEC did not have a quorum because the Bush administration wanted to appoint "vote suppression guru" Hans Sapovsky to the FEC, and so there was a stalemeate. Bush eventually withdrew his name several months later. However, the Republican appointed head of the FEC expressed serious doubts whether John McCain's opt-out was legal. So McCain has been raising private money for the general election for months because the offical time period for the general to start is post-convention, so public financing doesn't start till then. If McCain didn't opt out he would have been broke (the RNC could have perhaps stepped in), so it's understandable. Even so, he at least violated the spirit of a law that he himself was the champion.

brief link

substantiating video on McCain's "FEC Shenanigans"
Furthermore, despite railing against 527s in the past he recently said that he would not be the referree, thus greenlighting them. This will be the general election strategy for McCain, massive spending by the RNC as well as massive spending by outside groups even though the official McCain campaign will abide by the limits.

By constrast, the Obama campaign has told top donors to donate to the campaign and not to 527s. It effectively shut down a major operation, America's Progress (I think) which was gearing up for massive spending. This way it has greater control of its message though more accountability for its message as well. In response to the recent MoveOn ad, it again publicly requested that donors donate to the campaign and not to 527s. MoveOn, having a long history dating to the impeachment era, however, wants to continue its monkey-business but I don't think it's doing the campaign any favors.

Furthermore, though the difference is more cosmetic than substantive, the Obama campaign as well as the DNC are turning down money from federal registered lobbyists unlike the McCain campaign and the RNC.

In addition, Clinton was preparing to opt out and McCain was long considering it as well. He just couldn't raise the funds.

So, there is more than enough hypocrisy to go around. And in principle I think it is only fair that the campaign with more small donor and grass roots enthusiasm be reflected in its advertising strength. I know I take pleasure in donating to Obama when some BS thing goes down and would be pissed if I couldn't participate in funding his general election campaign. Obama has expressed some interest in limiting donation size but it unlikely he will reduce it below 2300.

It seems to me that in the future that more should be done to eliminate 527s as well as to put the cap on the donation size below 2300. Then, we would have a people-powered politics.

Again, remember that 527s can take unlimited donations and will be smearing Obama day and night in the fall. Rove is already behind the scenes with one, Freedom's Watch which ran Reverend Wright ads in Missippi already.

So, technically, Obama walked back on a promise, but in terms of the spirit, I think Obama is on better footing than McCain.

[Outis]

As I've said before, I find Obama's skill at politics-as-usual sourly comforting; it suggests that he might actually be tough and sly enough to govern.

Yeah, Amba, but here's the thing: He never governed anything before. He's not only going to need training wheels, he's going to need someone running behind the bike holding it up. (And as Amba knows, I think the same thing about John McCain, with the caveat that McCain does have command experience in the military. McCain will probably just need the training wheels.)

[eusto]

I realize some of what I wrote may have been unclear. It is now technically still the primary season up until the convention. And so since McCain opted into public financing for the primary he is still technically bound by those limits. However, he has long surpassed those limits and been raising and spending money for months in order to fight Obama, so he has been de facto spending for the general for quite some time and will continue till the convention.

I think the general principle here is that the problem is not money per se that is bad for politics but big money where large donors swamp the voices of the less wealthy. 100,000 vs. 25 bucks.

Oh and Obama actually donated to charity long ago all the money that Rezko had raised for him (I think the night when Clinton "won" the Florida primary.) He has however relied on bundlers, some of whom, while not lobbyists, are for instance, oil company execs etc. Thus, my passing remark about turning away lobbyist money being more cosmetic. (The lobbyist can't directly donate but he or she can raise money for you under Obama's current system.)

[Simon]

This is, naturellement, politics as usual.

Yes, but politics as usual is damaging to Obama. Why is it that we reserve particular scorn for the politicians who wear their religion on their sleeve and then get caught with a hand in the till or their what have you in someone else's spouse? Because they have held themselves to a higher standard. So it is with Obama. For an average politician to play politics as normal is par for the course; we expect it. But when Obama -- the candidate who has decried politics as normal, who has sanctimoniously claimed to be above, beyond and better than politics as normal, who cited the failure of politics as normal as his raison d'etre in his announcement of candidacy -- is caught playing politics as normal, it is far worse. Not because the act is any more malum in se, but because the actor has constructively declared that he should be held to a higher standard.

[Simon]

At the time, the FEC did not have a quorum because the Bush administration wanted to appoint "vote suppression guru" Hans Sapovsky [sic] to the FEC, and so there was a stalemeate [sic].

That's an interesting spin. The FEC lacked a quorum because Senate democrats refused to bring von Spakovsky's nomination to the floor. They didn't reject the nomination, mind you, they just left it in limbo. Now, that's not indefensible; it's the Senate's prerogative to take its time, even to the point of being dilatory. But it's a bit rich to then turn around and blame the results of their their stalling on Bush, whose sin in this is presumably that he didn't withdraw the nomination, a fortiori since the Senate Democrats could have ended the standoff at any time by calling up and voting down the nomination.

[eusto]

My understanding Simon is that they weren't allowed to vote for the commissioners individually but en bloc.

As a random remark, Simon, you are a very bright guy and I do not begrudge you that.

But I remember a while back you slamming Obama as an elitist prig. But dude, you use [like] Latin (!) all the time and are so prissy as to put [sic] around someone's misspellings. And furthermore, if I recall correctly, you're also originally British and so likely have a lingering accent, which ipso facto makes you an elitist in America. And using the term "prig" is also kind of prissy but maybe just it's more British usage. So just know that you would be immediately impaled as a traitor were you to run for office.

I'm not saying that makes any sense, but that's precisely my point. Just a thought I had a while ago. Oh, and for fun, PJ wrote a thesis on atheist ! french ! philosopher Sartre ! so he's disqualified from public office. And even Karen is in charge of organic cows! (She's providing aid and comfort to the hippie hordes!) And amba's parents were members of the socialist party, IIRC, no?

So I think we all just need to confess that we all hate America. I sure know I do :)

[ Sucked in that hatred along with my mother's milk (who taught me to fist bump (aka terrorist fist jab to those at Fox)) at an early age. I'm waiting to be declared an enemy combatant at any moment.]

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

Oh Simon, you knew me as Adam way back at Centerfield years ago. Back in those days, you were supporting Olympia Snowe as prez I do remember. That's where I picked up the Brit thing in case you were wondering.

[eusto]

More to the point, Simon, by engaging in that rhetoric you serve to foster a political environment in which eggheads like me, you, and most people writing blogs cannot serve.

And again IIRC you're an agnostic, so when you're tempted to slam a liberal for making a rude remark about religion just remember that you're making it harder if not impossible for about 25% (atheists and agnostics)of the population to serve in elected office.

As is often said, no way in hell Thomas Jefferson could be elected today given his Deism and his absolutely ruthless mockery of Christianity (and his francophilia, intellectualism, and overall snootery). This is not something for conservatives to be proud of.

[Outis]

Jesus, Eusto has lost his mind. He is unwilling to give any credit to anyone who stands in the way of his Lord and Savior, the Almighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe, er, Barack Obama. Hillary didn't "win" the Florida primary, she won it, no scare quotes necessary.

[amba]

No, my parents weren't members of the socialist party, but they voted once for its candidate, Norman Thomas.

eusto, I can imagine you doing that baby fist bump.

[eusto]

Um, Outis, dude, technically you're right. I should have moved the quotes to "primary" and not to "win." It was a beauty contest with no delegates at stake not sanctioned by the DNC, which she did in fact win. It was treated as such (as a beauty contest) by all the media outlets at the time who constantly repeated that no delegates were at stake.

But in my estimation were Obama to have campaigned there, he would have still lost but he likely would have cut the margin in half, going by results in Ohio and Penn.

Outis, what is your problem? Above I stated that
(1) Obama is guilty of hypocrisy
(2) That his ban on lobbyists is cosmetic
(3) That he's funded by in part by oil execs and other bundlers

Let me pile on.

(1) Obama's windfall profits tax is pandering.
(2) Obama pandered shamelessly on NAFTA.
(3) Obama is being purposely vague on Iraq. He says he's going to get us out in 16 months but that's complete BS (and thank god for that). That's a best case and highly unrealistic scenario and we will likely have 30,000 troops there till the end of his first term (going by Joe Klein and others).
(4) Of course, Obama knew that Reverend Wright said crazy things.
(5) His land deal with Rezko was shady.
(6) A lot of his record in the state senate was fluffed up by Emil Jones.

Calm down dude. But I'm still standing by my man :-P.

[Meade]

"As is often said, no way in hell Thomas Jefferson could be elected today given his Deism and his absolutely ruthless mockery of Christianity (and his francophilia, intellectualism, and overall snootery)."

Also, given his blatant Notes on the State of Virginia racism, not to mention his being an owner of slaves. Not only conservatives, but even today's liberals, I'd like to think, would have trouble with that.

[eusto]

Touche meade.

[mw]

"This is, naturellement, politics as usual." - amba

So. A politician who cut his political teeth in the wards of the bare knuckle Chicago political machine, turns out to be just another politician who will say whatever he needs to say to get votes and do whatever is politically expedient to get elected.

Huh.

Who would’ve thunk it?

[amba]

who has sanctimoniously claimed to be above, beyond and better than politics as normal, who cited the failure of politics as normal as his raison d'etre in his announcement of candidacy -- is caught playing politics as normal, it i s far worse.

But Simon: I'm saying that "claiming to be above beyond and better than politics as normal" IS POLITICS AS NORMAL. It has become an old warhorse gambit in the game.

[michael Reynolds]

Poor Simon. So clueless, really, at anything that isn't law. It's almost funny watching you try to lay a glove on Obama. As I said at your site, you can't decide whether he's a naif, a cult leader, a secret Black Panther. Find a narrative and try to stick to it.

But here's a clue for both you and Outis who is working the Obambi angle: Obama just defeated Hillary and Bill. Something the GOP never managed to do. Simon, your hero, Newt Gingrich, went after the Clintons and ended up unemployed. If you want to judge how tough a boxer is, check out the guys he beat.

Obama put together an organization that took him from junior Senator to Democratic candidate and in the process schooled not just his own party but the GOP on the fine art of money raising and organization. McCain, meanwhile, went bankrupt and still can't keep up in either money or organization.

Yeah, it's Obama who will need training wheels.

[karen]

It doesn't matter much how freaking rich BObama is or how well he raises $$$$; he's spending it all to promote himself. If he'd give it publically away to help ~poor~ folk out, say- in medical clinics or something(tho' not on abortions)= i might even vote for him.

I'll tell you what BObama is-- he's a liar. And a damned good one. He's so slippery, even the Willie would need ky to get it on.
The exorbitency(sp?)(heh- i always use my own scare tactics)of these professional pols makes me sick to my stomach. The $$$$ they burn could heat many a NEngland home come January.

Me thinks we have become a very gross joke. America. It hurts.

PS- Eusto- we only became Organic for the $$$$(purly Capitalist in nature), but the way it's been raining around the world lately(or not)is going to make for very tight margins no matter how we farm this yr. Cows eat a lot, dude :0).

[karen]

purly = purEly...

[Simon]

Adam:

My understanding Simon is that they weren't allowed to vote for the commissioners individually but en bloc.

I won't know where you heard that, but the statement ought to set off klaxons and rotating orange warning lights - spin! spin! spin! The Senate wasn't "allowed"? Who would impose such a rule, and by what authority?

As to Obama and elitism, I may have different cultural tastes to "ordinary Americans" - may even think mine are better. And I certainly think that people who are going to govern ought to be intelligent, articulate and erudite. But in that regard, I stand closer to the framers than I do to Obama. Obama has - and has repeatedly demonstrated - contempt for the core values, beliefs, intelligence and capacity for self-government of the American people. Those are a million miles apart. Do you really think that there's no difference between saying "look, Makers' Mark is just better bourbon than Kessler" and saying "you only cling to your guns and religion because you're too stupid to figure out that your economic prospects are grim"? Really?

I don't understand why there is a general assumption that agnostics have any common cause with atheism, and I don't understand why you think that because I'm an agnostic, I would want it to be easier for agnostics - a fortiori atheists - to obtain elected office?

Amba:

But Simon: I'm saying that "claiming to be above beyond and better than politics as normal" IS POLITICS AS NORMAL. It has become an old warhorse gambit in the game.

I don't disagree, but when someone invites us to hold them to a higher standard, knowing that they're insincere, and knowing that many other people offering that invitation are insincere, are not reasons for declining the invitation.

Plenty of politicians wear their religion on their sleeve, but when Larry Craig gets caught soliciting a homosexual encounter, we rightly think far less of him than we would if we heard that the openly gay Barney Frank was caught doing the same thing. It's not that the act is any different, it's that the person doing it reveals that they are a hypocrite, and one who thought you were a dupe who could be played, worse yet.

[Spud]

I'll tell you what BObama is-- he's a liar.
Posted by karen

No Karen, that's not the problem with Obama. The real problem you and Simon have with Obama, is that he's a democrat and liberal.

[karen]

Oh, yeah: uh-huh. That's right, spudly. Ignore all the many, plenty reasons as to why we don't agree w/or care for BObama... it's gotta be that.

And, seemingly- i'm as far away from Simon on a scale of living(a fortiori atheists ?)("look, Makers' Mark is just better bourbon than Kessler")as i can be.

Yup, it's 'cause he's a Democrat and a Liberal. Yah caught me.

[Outis]

Calm down dude.

I'm calm. I'm not the one that was recently going after McCain's wife as being a drug addict and using shady language to imply McCain beat his wife (he "brutalized" her, in your language).

I actually don't care who wins the election as I think McCain and Obama will (1) both be constrained by circumstances to the same basic courses of action and (2) think both of them are clearly unequal to the job's demands. (McCain because of his PUBLIC character and Obama because of his inexperience.)

I think Obama will probably be the worse of the two but that's because he is going to have a heavily Democratic Congress, therefore he will have more opportunities to either cave into Congressional leadership or/and get everything he wants with a cherry on top.

But what I do find increasingly offensive (and somewhat perplexing) is the fact the Obama's supporters have absolutely lost their fucking minds. So far the only thing Obama has proven he can do in his political career is get elected to ever higher offices despite never really accomplishing anything in the offices he has occupied. (Given his track record I suspect that Obama will take the permanent campaigning of the last 16 years to a new height.)

Furthermore Obama hasn't really displayed any great intellectual prowess as a policy wonk, he hasn't actually run anything other than his campaigns, and he isn't really proposing to do anything new as President except lower the oceans. (That'll be a neat trick.) All of his other policy proposals are warmed over ideas from the last 40 years of Democratic policy "planks". But we are constantly told that he will bring "CHANGE" to Washington.

And despite all of this his supporters follow him as though he were Jesus Christ come back to lead us all to Heaven, and they treat his opponents as though they were all Judases destined to spend eternity rotting in one of The Beast's maws. You guys make the PowerLine trio look like hard-ball opponents of W by comparison.

[Randy]

I largely agree with Outis's last comment here. And amba's point that this is just more politics as usual. I can't help wondering, though, if a genuine audit of these supposed smaller than $200 donations will uncover a massive money-laundering operation somewhere. (Not just Obama's donations, mind you.)

[Spud]

But what I do find increasingly offensive (and somewhat perplexing) is the fact the Obama's supporters have absolutely lost their fucking minds.

Posted by: Outis

Offensive? It would be one thing if Bush had left our country in good shape, then I could see your concern. I for one, sure as hell don't see Obama as Jesus Christ. I would vote for the democratic nominee no matter who it was. The pendulum always swings.

[amba]

But we are constantly told that he will bring "CHANGE" to Washington.

He will! Change BACK to Democratic hegemony and the interruptedtradition of FDR, the Kennedys and LBJ! That why Democrats worship him! He's gonna lead 'em out of the wilderness and back to the trough!

[michael Reynolds]

Amba:
Newsweek has Obama up by 15 points. McCain at 36% of registereds.

With all due respect, it's the Obama bashers who are obsessed with and fixated on Obama. They're the ones who can't stop writing and talking about him. Every day it's some new and ever more hysterical attack. (This financing thing being the one genuine issue I've seen so far. Last wekk Simon was humping the Michelle Said Whitey! drivel.)

And none of the Baracknophobes can even agree on a narrative. Is Obama a weak-kneed naif or a manipulative Machiavelli or the Manchurian Candidate? Attacks don't work very well if you can't even agree on the broad outlines of what the victim is supposed to represent.

And we, the supporters, are alternately old-line Democrats longing for FDR, or cult members, or secret radicals.

The obsession is on the right. Simon can't stop himself from flailing away limply. Whereas, I'm an Obama supporter and I manage to go entire days without thinking about the man.

The problem the right has is that they can't figure out how to attack Obama. Not because they're worried about figuring out the truth, but because nothing so far has worked. They'll try anything. Whatever works, they'll go with, and remain completely indifferent to the truth.

The problem the right has is that they despise their own candidate. And they despise their current leader. And all they have, poor things, is an obsessive hatred they can't even manage to define.

[Spud]

Thank you Michael.

[amba]

The problem the right has is that they despise their own candidate. And they despise their current leader.

Now THERE you have hit the nail on the head!!

A conservative friend just wrote me: "today's WSJ editorial on the duo was psychologically insightful ... obama is even slicker than willy clinton in many ways .... and mccain is a putz in so many ways ... yet the outcome is in doubt because the stakes are so high." (Outis, as we know, disagrees.)

[amba]

First time I ever heard the word "putz" applied to McCain, but it kinda fits . . .

[Simon]

And none of the Baracknophobes can even agree on a narrative. Is Obama a weak-kneed naif or a manipulative Machiavelli or the Manchurian Candidate? Attacks don't work very well if you can't even agree on the broad outlines of what the victim is supposed to represent.

Michael, you keep offering this tired talking point, and I'm starting to wonder if you actually don't grasp that it's a false dilemma. Is Obama naive on foreign policy "or" is he a canny Chicago political organizer? Gee, Michel, does a penny depict a bust of Lincoln "or" the Lincoln memorial?

The problem the right has is that they despise their own candidate.

Some of us don't like McCain, to be sure, but I have no particular beef from him, and even if he wouldn't be my first choice to be the next President, he'll do just fine. So far as I can tell, your argument that we're "obsessed" with pointing out Obama amounts to the observation that we don't waste gallons of ink and pixels by the metric ton pointing out the blindingly obvious. We don't need to spell out what McCain believes: it is well known, and there is no disconnect between what he claims to be and what he has shown himself to be. McCain is decent, honorable, pragmatic, and right. Obama is ignorant, conceited, opportunistic, deceitful, pompous beyond words, and profoundly wrong. McCain represents policies that I may think are good and that you may think are bad, but Obama represents a return to policies anda way of thinking that both of us know is the discredited, warmed over remains of policy that has been tried before, that has failed, utterly, and whose lingering aftereffects threaten to drown out society. This election does not present a close call for me.

[michael Reynolds]

Simon:
Thanks for finally saying something kind about McCain. I was starting to feel sorry for the man.

The truth is no one knows quite what Obama is. It's your certainty -- "Obama is ignorant, conceited, opportunistic, deceitful, pompous beyond words, and profoundly wrong" -- that reveals the depths of your hysteria and obsession. And what a revealing choice of words. He's wounded your amour propre, somehow. So far he's done nothing to you, or to anyone else, but you sound as unhinged at a Kossack talking about Dick Cheney.

At your blog -- called "Stubborn Facts" of all things -- you were pushing the Michelle Obama "Whitey" nonsense. If you're going to scrape the bottom of the barrel have the decency to change the name of the blog. Face it, Simon, that didn't meet even the most forgiving definition of "fact." It was pure rumor, a slander against a candidate's wife, for God's sake.

But you're not obsessed. Yeah, you're calm and rational and self-possessed.

[karen]

And i repeat...
i'll tell you what BObama is- he's a "http://URL.com">liar.

[karen]

Crap!!

I followed the directions- oh... ~blush~ i didn't have the correct link- no place to go to?

It's at Anchoress. Special for spudly:0). And Michael.

[Simon]

Thanks for finally saying something kind about McCain. I was starting to feel sorry for the man.

It's not the first time. Indeed, not only am I not averse to saying nice things about McCain, I stuck my neck out to defend him over the nuclear option. That was one of those things, by the way, where McCain actually did the sort of thing that Obama talks about doing - bipartisan compromise yet steadfastly refused to be a part of. Yesterday, Obama finally did something that indicated that be might back up his rhetoric with action by defying the base of his party over the FISA bill. A little late, of course -- he did so after the threat to his ambitions from those who'd challenge him over that action was neutralized, compared to McCain who took risks when they were actually risks -- but better late than never.

The truth is no one knows quite what Obama is. It's your certainty -- "Obama is ignorant, conceited, opportunistic, deceitful, pompous beyond words, and profoundly wrong" -- that reveals the depths of your hysteria and obsession.

Even if he had been a blank slate on Wednesday evening, by Thursday lunchtime we had been treated to a demonstration of him being all six.

So far he's done nothing to you, or to anyone else....

An asine point given that Obama is running for an office where he will be in a position to do a great deal to all of us, on a platform of using that power, and using it in ways that will be profoundly damaging to me and every other person in this country, born vel non.

At your blog -- called "Stubborn Facts" of all things -- you were pushing the Michelle Obama "Whitey" nonsense. If you're going to scrape the bottom of the barrel have the decency to change the name of the blog. Face it, Simon, that didn't meet even the most forgiving definition of "fact." It was pure rumor, a slander against a candidate's wife, for God's sake.

That's misrepresentation at best, and outright inaccurate at worst. You make it sound like we were part of the Hillarysphere that created and pushed the story - which is incorrect. We ignored it until Obama, having been asked whether it was true, chose to obfuscate and waffle instead of denying it. At that point - and only at that point - did I link to it, and I did so not because the story itself rang true, but because in my experience, when a politician puts on mock outrage, talks around the question, and fails to actually deny the allegation, that "non-denial denial" gives credibility to the allegation.

And by the way: within weeks, despite the skepticism expressed by yourself (and my co-bloggers) over whether Obama should respond to such allegations, Obama flip-flopped. In a blaze of publicity, his campaign created a website aimed at specifically answering precisely the sort of rumors that were at issue. So even Obama thinks you were wrong on this, Michael.

[Michael Reynolds]

Simon:

To paraphrase your co-bloggers, you were demanding that Obama answer a "when did you stop beating your wife?" question, and using what only you perceived as ambiguity in his answer, to hump the Whitey story. Oldest dodge in the business: get a guy to deny a fabricated story. And you played along enthusiastically, acting as a megaphone for a scurrilous rumor. A fact-free rumor.

And now you want to argue that because Obama has been forced -- by people like you -- to put up a site defending his wife -- from people like you -- that this proves you were right all along?

Um, what?

As for whether I'm misrepresenting what happened, I invite readers to check it out.

[Spud]

"And i repeat...
I'll tell you what BObama is- he's a liar."
Karen

And I'll repeat karen. The real problem for you and Simon, is that Obama is a liberal, and that is what is terrifying to the both of you. If lying was your real concern, wouldn't McCain bother you, just a little bit?

Here is just a short list of McCain's flip-flops.

McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.

McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq.

McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor.

McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off than they were before Bush took office.

McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.

McCain believes his endorsement from radical televangelist John Hagee was both a good and bad idea.

McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.

McCain endorsed a federal moratorium on offshore drilling.
But earlier this week, he called for dissolving the federal ban on offshore oil drilling

McCain now opposes his own immigration plan.

McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.

[Spud]

I saw this clever little gem this morning.
________________

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock,
I’m a little McCain FlipFlop,
First I’m here, and next I’m there,
Don’t be confused by my vote getting cares.

On lobby money I have taken my share,
Keating 5 was my first foray there,
Then when outted I changed my stance,
Now I stand firmly against campaign finance.

Next on votes I may stand here or there,
I have a record of voting with Democrats cares,
In fact you find that I’m quite a rouge,
You never know where I’ll be when the wind blows.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock,
I’m a little McCain FlipFlop,
First I’m here, and next I’m there,
Don’t be confused by my smoke screen smears.

And should we disagree, I’ll dig my feet in and put up a fuss,
I am an angry man with Machiavellian gloves,
I hit my opponents from the front, then slice them from the rear,
All the time saying, My Friend, its just politics, not to fear.

On the Bush Tax Cuts I was against them for years,
Only 2 republicans voted against them to be clear,
But now I need votes and I see the error of my ways,
I am for the Tax Cuts as long as it pays.

On immigration I stood firmly with the left,
Free pass to immigration for tax paying illegals seemed to me best,
But now that Republican votes are my aim,
I can see more clearly the politics of border control game.
It may not appear that I have changed my position to support the wall,
As long as a vote never occurs for my senate immigration proposal.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock,
I’m a little McCain FlipFlop,
First I’m here, and next I’m there,
So don’t be disappointed when you find me courting democrat cares.

[Simon]

And now you want to argue that because Obama has been forced -- by people like you -- to put up a site defending his wife -- from people like you -- that this proves you were right all along?

It proves that Obama - or someone canny in his campaign - recognizes that non-denial denials can have the effect of bootstrapping a story into credibility. Refusing to deny an allegation raises a red flag; that's why, when someone pleads the Fifth, the natural reaction is to infer that "theydunnit." It gives even those who dismissed the original allegation out of hand, as I did, a reason to be suspicious.

While I recognize the force of my co-bloggers' observations that nothing he could have said would have convinced everyone (there are people out there who are so blindly hostile that they'll believe anything said about him - you're implying that I'm one of them, Michael, which is false and easily disproven; more on that anon), I stand by what I said replying to one of Tully's comments: "[t]he task isn't to present an answer that no one can pick any kind of fight with. The task is to present an answer that any reasonable person would understand to address and answer the point."

As for whether I'm misrepresenting what happened, I invite readers to check it out.

So do I - which is why I posted a link to the post in question. You didn't, I notice, which makes it a little hard to take the misrepresentation and belated suggestion that readers see for themselves in good faith. Makes one a little skittish; makes one think that the goal of the exercise was to create the impression in the innocent reader's mind that I'm one of those people who are so implacably hostile to Obama that they'll buy any story critical of him. If you don't have a defense of Obama on the point made, attacking my credibility to make the point is almost as good, and a time-honored custom. Or rather, it would be almost as good if it wasn't patently and demonstrably false. To pick out only two recent examples, I'd invite readers to compare my post here, defending Obama vis-a-vis the Auschwitz uncle business, or my post here supporting Matt Yglesias' effort to googlebomb a website dismissing the "Obama is a Muslim" meme (for good measure, I called the meme a "silly canard").

[Outis]

And all they have, poor things, is an obsessive hatred they can't even manage to define.

This is funny coming from someone who has compared Bush to Mussolini. I remebere when you were hysterically questioning wheher or not Bush would leave office when his term endsin January 2009, or if instead he would send in the tanks and the troopers to throw Congress in jail and start executing his enemies. Michael, you comments about the Right having nothing but hatred might be a little more convincing coming from someone who hadn't made such a big point of frothing at the mouth for the last several years whenever the name "Bush" was mentioned.

[Outis]

Outis, as we know, disagrees.

I love that sentence! I should have switched names ages ago....

He's gonna lead 'em out of the wilderness and back to the trough!

And this is why I don't think this election matters that much: It is now just a question of which pigs we're going to have at the trough. Neither party represents much more than a different set of hogs these days. Too bad we'll never get to make any bacon out of any of them....