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I’ve been hitting on Obama about his lying for months now. The latest example is his reneging on his repeatedly stated promise to use federal financing for the election.

Here are a slew of links discussing this most recent lie.

First, the lie itself (video at link).

Obama: We face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.

Truth be told, he’s good, but narcissists always are (think Bill Clinton).

And now some comments on that lie from FactCheck.org:

Obama’s Lame Claim About McCain’s Money
June 20, 2008
Obama says McCain is “fueled” by money from lobbyists and PACs, but those sources account for less than 1.7 percent of McCain’s money.

Obama announced he would become the first presidential candidate since 1972 to rely totally on private donations for his general election campaign, opting out of the system of public financing and spending limits that was put in place after the Watergate scandal.

One reason, he said, is that “John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs.”

We find that to be a large exaggeration and a lame excuse. In fact, donations from PACs and lobbyists make up less than 1.7 percent of McCain’s total receipts, and they account for only about 1.1 percent of the RNC’s receipts.

Richard Baehr:

Barack Obama told Common Cause in November 2007 he would accept federal funding for the General Election race were he the Democratic Party’s nominee in 2008.

Today Obama became the first candidate of a major party to ever opt out of the system. There is of course only one reason for the decision- Obama will raise far more money outside the system, than the $84 million in federal money he would receive from the FEC for the campaign inside the system.

Obama offered the usual lame excuse for his latest shift- GOP smear campaigns, and 527 groups. In the real world, Obama supporting 527s have raised far more money than McCain supporting 527s, and are already out with nasty attacks (moveon.org in particular). Pure and simple, and despite the lofty rhetoric , every Obama decision is always pure political calculation.

Rick Moran:

The main reason Barack Obama has given for eschewing public financing of his campaign was based on a lie:

“We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election,” Obama says in the video, blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying “we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

“Millions and millions of dollars” from GOP 527 groups? This is a lie as Obama well knows. Jonathan Martin exposes Obama:

Obama’s alarmist prophecy - a bit of typical campaign rhetoric meant to scare his own donors into reaching for their credit cards - is wildly at odds with the flatlined state of conservative third-party efforts.

The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

Jake Tapper:

Declaring independence from a “broken system” by breaking a promise. Obama hopes you’ll care more about the former than the latter.
- jpt
UPDATE: McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker emails: “Today, Barack Obama has revealed himself to be just another typical politician who will do and say whatever is most expedient for Barack Obama. The true test of a candidate for President is whether he will stand on principle and keep his word to the American people. Barack Obama has failed that test today, and his reversal of his promise to participate in the public finance system undermines his call for a new type of politics. Barack Obama is now the first presidential candidate since Watergate to run a campaign entirely on private funds. This decision will have far-reaching and extraordinary consequences that will weaken and undermine the public financing system.”

Ed Lasky:

In the lead editorial Public Funding on the Ropes, the New York Times seems to go out of its way to make the claim that Obama is rejecting public financing for the Presidential campaign because he must battle so-called 527 groups that exist outside the public campaign system (and outside the nominees control).

The paper makes the outlandish claim that John McCain, ” is inviting them (527 groups) into the fray on his behalf.”

Balderdash.

As reported in the Politico and in today’s New York Times , such GOP-leaning 527 groups are all but non-existent at this point with little chance of having any impact in this election. The Times also noted that donors on the right were wary of funding such 527 groups and that McCain has been highly critical of them in the past (recall he castigated the Swift Boat ads against Senator John Kerry). The paper notes this wariness may also be due because of the “possibility they might occur the wrath of John McCain”.

So how can one square the editorial which opines that McCain is inviting 527s into the fray on his behalf with the news section of the paper which states that such efforts may incur McCain’s wrath? Does the editorial board even read its own paper?

In fact, 527 groups are much more likely to help Barack Obama. In the previous election cycle the top contributor to 527 groups was George Soros-an early supporter of Barack Obama. Anyone doubting the impact of Soros’s network of 527 groups should merely do a google search using his name and the number 527.

David Brooks:

God, Republicans are saps. They think that they’re running against some academic liberal who wouldn’t wear flag pins on his lapel, whose wife isn’t proud of America and who went to some liberationist church where the pastor damned his own country. They think they’re running against some naïve university-town dreamer, the second coming of Adlai Stevenson.

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

See Also: Shy Speak, Amerpundit, Hot Air

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