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October 01, 2008
A Day of Revealed Secrets
"What the American people don't need is more George Bush secrecy in the White House." - David Plouffe, Barack Obama campaign manager.
But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret.This, of course, will go unreported by the media. I agree with Glenn Reynolds - their treatment of Obama at this point is "outright campaigning." They are simply ignoring stories that could prove damaging to the man who could be the next president of the United States and in doing so, are abdicating the responsibility given them by the Constitution. The watchdogs have become lapdogs. The little yappy kind.Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).
Today, we got an example of just how in the tank some media figures are for The One.
The AP has a hidden nugget at the end of its report on the Gwen Ifill controversy. While some have blamed the McCain campaign for agreeing to Ifill as a moderator for tomorrow night’s VP debate while writing a book about “The Age of Barack Obama”, it turns out that Ifill didn’t bother to inform the Commission or the McCain campaign about the book...The book in question is titled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, a title that doesn't exactly scream 'impartiality.' If Ifill wants to write a book about Obama's historic campaign, I don't blame her. It is one heck of a story.
But given her financial interest in selling such a book, an interest that would be improved by an Obama victory, it was an egregious breach of ethics not to disclose this book to the Commission on Presidential Debates. Ifill has now compounded her error by refusing to step down as debate moderator. I predict she'll further tarnish her reputation tomorrow night by refusing to acknowledge her clear conflict of interest while pretending at impartiality.
It really has been a bad day all around for disclosure on the part of those whose party and industry have complained incessantly about the secrecy of the Bush administration. I guess principles are for the little people.
Posted by slublog at October 1, 2008 11:52 PM
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