Who Ya Gonna Call?

When you need your right-wing talking points accepted wholesale, who you gonna call? I'd call ABC's Charlie Gibson. From an interview with Barack Obama yesterday:

OBAMA: Well, look, there is no doubt that the amount of money that we've raised in this campaign has been extraordinary and surprised me as much as anybody -- maybe more than anybody. What I would simply point to is that the way we have raised this money has been by expanding the pool of small donors in this country in an unprecedented way.

GIBSON: But you haven't released their names.

OBAMA: We've got ...

GIBSON: We don't know who they are.

OBAMA: Well, look, the -- a whole bunch of them were out here today. I mean, you're looking the people who are giving 5, 10, $25. Ordinary folks who have gotten impassioned about this campaign in a way that is unprecedented. And that, really, is ...

GIBSON: Shouldn't we know the names of that list?

No! Gibson surely is aware of FEC regulations, which require disclosure only of donations of more than $250. It's been like that for years -- that's the law. And Obama does that -- he just doesn't release the millions of names of people who give small donations, because it's not required and would be a massive task anyhow. It's not really clear what Gibson is alleging, nor was it clear when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis recently leveled the same charge, calling them "secret donations":

"And I only say 'secret' because I have no doubt that there are sort of -- the vast majority of those are probably legitimate," Davis explained. "But they're being kept secret by the Obama campaign, for no good reason."

Except for, you know, federal law. Davis knows it. Charlie Gibson knows it. But how many viewers do, after watching that interview?

(And also, anybody seen Palin's medical records yet? I didn't think so ...)

Comments

[jlarue]

Someone in the press please push the medical records issue!!!!!Palin is hiding something...why else would they be so secretive?

[Parducci]

The key word regarding the federal law being, you know, "require." There is nothing that prohibits Obama from releasing these records or explaining why the campaign disabled the basic credit card security features on the website. He simply chooses not to do so.

Should he be elected, this foreshadows a presidency cloaked in mystery, where and a president who will not do more than the minimum amount required by law in areas of ethics and responsibility.

[jlarue]

Give me a break! McCain and Palin are dishonest and despicable and this is just another attempt to make a tempest in a teapot.

[twisted-european]

... Grouchbusters! ;-)