Illegal fundraising by the Obama campaign? Who would have thought?

I wonder how much of that foreign money comes from oil wealth.

The New York Times continues to act as the propaganda arm of the Obama campaign:

Steve Diamond has made a powerful case that, whoever first suggested Obama’s name, Ayers must surely have had a major role in his final selection. Diamond has now revealed that the Times consulted him extensively for this article and has seen his important documentary evidence. Yet we get no inkling in the piece of Diamond’s key points, or the documents that back it up. (I’ve made a similar argument myself, based largely on my viewing of many of the same documents presented by Diamond.) How can an article that gives only one side of the story be fair? Instead of offering both sides of the argument and letting readers decide, the Times simply spoon-feeds its readers the Obama camp line.

The Times also ignores the fact that I’ve published a detailed statement from the Obama camp on the relationship between Ayers and Obama at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (See “Obama’s Challenge.”) Maybe that’s because attention to that statement would force them to acknowledge and report on my detailed reply.

Yup. Wouldn’t fit the narrative.

[Mid afternoon update]

Instapundit has a roundup of links discussing this.

Mark Hemingway notes the ongoing double standard of the press:

Not that these things are to be excused out of hand, but Palin bends zoning rules — which I’m sure are stringent and a high stakes matter in Wasilla, Alaska — and gets a free facial. Obama gets a freakin’ house with help from someone indicted for money laundering, wire fraud, extortion and corrupt solicitation; has someone raising money for his campaign with well-publicized ties to organized crime; and the Illinois attorney general is currently looking into how Obama earmarked $100,000 for a former campaign volunteer who never spent the money for its intended purpose — and yet, I don’t see too many “investigations” decrying Obama’s transparently false claims he practices a “new” kind of politics.

I guess that my thesis is going to be tested. We’re seeing exactly the same behavior from the Fourth Estate regarding the Democrat candidate as we saw in 1992–completely ignoring the candidate’s unsavory history, and hoping that no one else exposes it, while acting as an adjunct part of his campaign in maintaining the anti-Republican narrative. Will they get away with it again?

We’ll see if the blogosphere can make a difference this time.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Well, now we know what a community organizer does. He strong arms banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.

And he has the audacity of hope that the media won’t call him on his hypocrisy in blaming George Bush and the Republicans, and “deregulation” for the current crisis. Unfortunately, his audacity seems to be justified.

Someone should put together an ad, and ask which regulatory agency should have reined in organizer Obama.

[Update mid morning]

Victor Davis Hanson has more on the media double standards:

As I recall Raines was the one who, following the Enron scandals, gave public lectures about corporate responsibility and CEO honesty. And as one begins to read about Raines, James Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, and Leland Brendsel at Freddie Mac, one begins to understand their modus operandi. Freddie and Fannie were landing pads for former Democratic insiders, who milked the agencies for millions in bonuses as they covered their tracks by donations to Congressional candiates and pseudo-racial-populism of helping minorities buy homes with little down. Their careers are every bit as nauseating as anything at Enron — and yet the press strangely does not go after them in the manner we learned of Ken Lay’s deceit. God help us all.

It goes beyond nauseating. It makes me incandescently angry.

[Early afternoon update[

Geraghty has some related thoughts on the Missouri issue:

Think about it, the local television station summarized the story on their web site, “The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign,” and it seems no one at the station blinked; there was nothing in the report that indicated that this might be controversial.

I hate to be glum heading into October, but to a certain extent, an electorate gets the leaders it deserves. If the journalism institutions in a given area nod and smile as they’re given information like this — if it never crosses their mind to object — then the Fourth Estate, for all extents and purposes, ceases to exist. When Ben Franklin responded to the query about the government that would manage the young nation, “A Republic, if you can keep it,” moments like this make you wonder if we’re in the process of losing it.

These “reporters” are a product of their environment–public schools and (often) schools of journalism. Is the problem that they don’t understand the Bill of Rights, or is it that they don’t care about it, if it gets in the way of their preferred candidate? Do they not understand that it is precisely the right being potentially violated here that allows them the freedom to pursue their supposed profession? Either way, it is very dismaying.

“First, they came for the McCain supporters, and I did nothing, because I was not a McCain supporter.”

You don’t have to go overseas any more.

Patterico has the story:

…the DNC threatened Sinclair Broadcasting’s broadcast license over an anti-Kerry documentary called ‘Stolen Honor.’ Kerry spokesthug Chad Clanton was quoted as saying: ‘I think they’re going to regret doing this, and they better hope we don’t win.’ He hastened to add that it wasn’t a threat.”

Do you Obamaphiles really want these people in charge of the Justice Department? That doesn’t scare you just a little bit?

Nancy Pelosi says that the bailout bill has to pass.

OK, Madame Speaker, if you believe that, if it’s such a great idea, then why not pass it? Your party controls the House. There is no filibuster as there is in the Senate. There’s nothing the House Republicans can do to stop you. So where is the bill?

Obviously, she just wants keister upholstery in case it doesn’t work. She wants to get buy-in from the Republicans so that they can share the blame for the taxpayer ripoff. I don’t see why they should give it to her. And I also don’t see why this isn’t pointed out in news stories like this.

Oh, right.

In Ohio.

You’ll be as shocked as I was to learn that ACORN is involved.

Clarice Feldman notes that Bill Ayers was a lot more than a “guy in Barack’s neighborhood.”

How is it possible that Obama in writing two autobiographies could ignore his 13 year-long association with Ayers if he were not purposely trying to hide or downplay it? How is it possible that the media could continue to ignore the CAC story? How is it possible that American voters, who regularly indicate such enormous concern over educational issues, could be so long kept in the dark by the Fourth Estate about the educational project Obama ran into the ground while he aided his revolutionary pals in recruiting Chicago kids to their extreme left wing mission?

It’s clear that Obama and his friends, including those in the press, are trying to keep this all bottled up at least until after the election.

Then, I suppose, like the Clinton peccadilloes in Arkansas, this story will be free to unfold, too late to inform the voters.

Except unlike 1992, we have alternate media today.

It’s so good, that he remembers things that didn’t happen:

…I think Joe Biden’s constant flights of fancy indicate he’s not a terribly precise thinker or speaker, and he’s certainly not used to being called out on these, or being corrected. He takes in data and remembers what he wants to remember, not the facts as they actually are.

(More on this list – he keeps insisting that his wife and daughter were killed by a drunk driver when the driver in question was sober; he keeps saying he was a coal miner when his grandfather was; he says the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said we’re losing the war in Iraq (he said we were “not winning” in Afghanistan)… )

I know we’re supposed to be worried about whether Sarah Palin is ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, but I really wonder what kind of diplomatic crises could be triggered by a globetrotting vice president who kept talking about events that didn’t happen…

I don’t think that Biden’s IQ is as high as he thinks it is.

And I agree that this is one gaffe that’s really going to hurt him. I expect it will be featured in a lot of McCain ads in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

[Update a few minutes later]

Victor Davis Hanson makes a good point:

In short, the problem is not whether we think the affable Biden’s latest slip/goof/outrage is important, but whether we think anything he says any more is important. The next time he tries to offer something serious, from the AIG matter and coal power to campaign ads and Sarah Palin, I think we are at the point where most will smile, ignore him, and think ‘That’s just Biden being Biden.’ He could give the Gettyburg Address tomorrow, and the public wouldn’t know whether he wrote it, whether he was going to retract it, whether it was true, or whether he was serious.

I haven’t taken Joe Biden seriously in years. Actually, I can’t recall a time that I ever did.