McCain's Campaign Funding Hypocrisy:

Why Are the Media Looking the Other Way?

This story needs to get more exposure.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mccains-campaign-funding_b_108772.html

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The MSM's overheated response to Barack Obama's decision to opt out of the public campaign finance system was a textbook example.

"Obama chose winning over his word" and "tarnished his carefully honed image as a different kind of politician," said the AP's Liz Sidoti.

"Your typical politician," said Lou Dobbs.

"No wonder John McCain smelled a flip-flop," said Dean Reynolds on the CBS Evening News.

"People in this country like to believe that people play on a level playing field and that a campaign will be about ideas and personality; if you start with that much more money, is it basically fair?" asked Charlie Gibson.

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"This is a big deal," said McCain of Obama's decision. "It's a big deal. He has completely reversed himself and gone back not on his word to me, but the commitment that he made to the American people. That's disturbing."

What's actually disturbing is the Swift Boat Media's complete indifference to McCain's bald-faced hypocrisy on the same issue. Amidst all the attacks on Obama's "flip-flop," how much have you read in the MSM about the fact that McCain has "completely reversed himself" on public financing -- and is currently breaking the law on a daily basis, making a mockery out of a campaign finance system he helped create?

In the fall of 2007, McCain opted into the public financing system for the GOP primaries, which meant he'd later receive just over $5 million in public funds in exchange for agreeing to a fundraising limit of around $54 million for the entire primary process, which ends when he accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention in September.

By late November, his campaign was practically broke, so McCain took out a pair of $1 million loans, using the public funds he would receive as collateral.

Cut to Super Tuesday, when McCain had the Republican nomination all but wrapped up. Suddenly, he didn't want to be bound by that $54 million limit, so his campaign did a 180 and opted back out of the public financing system.

But as David Mason, the Republican-appointed chair of the FEC, has pointed out, you can't just unilaterally opt out -- especially after securing a loan based on having opted in. The response of the McCain campaign is quite simply to ignore Mason. And because the FEC currently lacks a quorum (thanks to stalling tactics by that human roadblock to reform, Mitch McConnell) that's where things stand, pending a ruling on a lawsuit filed by the DNC.


....more

Somehow? :shrug:


K&R

I watched several shows, and read several accounts, over the weekend about Obama's supposed flip-flop. One, it was deliberately misrepresented as a 'promise' he had made, and two, NO ONE thought to compare it with what McCain did. It just didn't seem to cross their minds to bring it up. It was blatant.

They just refuse to report it.

Even though they have been trained over the years to take Republican planted stories and run with them without question and without investigating. The habit has become part of their nature. If a Republican says it, they report it. If a Democrat says it, they are skeptical. That is just the way they are because they are part of the corporate media.

:hi: