Posted by
Dave Perkins on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 11:16:09 PM
Here's
a news story about the dedicated Obama campaign staff busily rooting out questionable donations and refunding them.
These people are certainly strolling the high road, ethics above all, nothing to see here, please return to your homes, etc.
In fact, the WaPo writers saw fit to include an Obama spokesperson's comment that "
John McCain was forced to refund more than $1.2 million in
contributions and has accepted contributions from non-existent donors
like 'Jesus II' -- our review system caught and rectified this issue." . How wonderful of them, to be so attentive to ethical fundraising and so aware that others are less so.
But I have some questions.
IF this little old retired lady was the victim of a genuine stolen identity, how is it that her credit card company allowed her to donate $175k? I have some nice high credit limits, but I'm not Ted Turner for pete's sake.
And if she's not a victim of stolen identity, that is to say if her name was all that was used and the donations got in there some other way than with her 'stolen credit', then how could the Obama campaign refund the money? From whence, I ask, did it originate, and if the campaign knows where it came from, shouldn't they give that info to, I don't know, LAW ENFORCEMENT or someone?
The campaign says it refunded the money. It came from over 70 different sources all in the same day, they say. More questions. Did over 70 donations all have the one lady's name on them? But if they know how to refund the money, they must know where it came from... right? So they knew it wasn't hers... didn't they? So why even bring her into it?
Perhaps the clue is at the end, when she bashes Bush and endorses Obama. :-)
This money thing is just a little to iffy a proposal for me... the McCain bashing I can understand in the WaPo, but I cannot understand the timeline and pertinent facts here. The assembled quotes in the story appear to be chosen to obscure enough of the facts that no reader can come away comfortable that he knows what happened here.
But that doesn't stop the Obama folks from accepting credit for being ethically superior. :-)