Posted on 10/10/2010 6:32:27 PM PDT by freespirited
President Obama on Sunday stepped back from categorical charges he made earlier this week that foreign money was funding conservative TV campaign ads, telling a rally in Philadelphia only that such a scenario was possible.
The softening of Obamas language reflects the impact of a Saturday report on the issue by the New York Times, which concluded that charges originally made by a blog run by a Democratic-aligned think tank were baseless.
On Thursday, at a rally at Bowie State University in Maryland, Obama said this: Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations.
But on Sunday, speaking to several thousand supporters in Philadelphia, he said that donors to groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could even be foreign-owned corporations.
You dont know because they dont have to disclose, Obama said.
Obamas backtracking on the issue follows several days of intense debate on the subject, following the posting Tuesday of the charges at ThinkProgress.org, the blog that is operated under the umbrella of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank run by John Podesta, who oversaw Obamas transition team in the winter of 2008.
White House officials, who took up the charges and ran with them for a few days, admitted Saturday to the New York Times that they had no evidence of foreign money being used by the Chamber for any of its estimated $75 million in ads this cycle.
No one knows, said top Obama adviser David Axelrod, appearing Sunday on CBS Face the Nation.
If the chamber opens up its books and says heres where our political money is coming from, here are the million dollar, two or three million dollar contributions weve gotten from this company or that industry, then well know, Axelrod said. But until they do that, all we have is their assertion.
Bob Schieffer, the host of the show, expressed incredulity.
If the only charge three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do? Schieffer asked.
ThinkProgress maintains that the charge is still valid. They say that there are several sources of foreign money that come into the Chamber.
Not every Democrat was on the same page as the president. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, sent out a fundraising e-mail Sunday that deemed the use of foreign funds in Republican TV ads to be a certainty.
The Republicans are now able to use secretive outside groups to pool the unlimited resources of big banks, big oil companies, and big health insurance companies into their campaign of attacks ads against Democrats, Van Hollen said in the e-mail. Its recently come to light that some of these organizations received significant funds from foreign-controlled interests.
During Obamas speech in Philadelphia, he used many of the same talking points and anecdotes that have become fixtures in his remarks at fundraisers and rallies over the last three months. But he was more partisan and combative in tone than normal, and beseeched the crowd of loyal supporters not to stay home on Nov. 2.
Theyre saying the other partys supporters are more enthusiastic, more excited. They say all yall are going to stay home. You might not come out like you did in 2008. They say you might not care as much. They think, oh, well, Obamas name is not on the ballot, maybe theyre not going to turn out, Obama said.
I think the pundits are wrong. I think were going to win, but you got to prove them wrong, he said.
Obama was relentless in pounding the Republicans, saying they have spent the last 20 months saying no.
He characterized the House Republicans Pledge to America as structured around extending the Bush tax cuts for families making $250,000 or more. But he characterized the GOP position, which favors extending cuts for all tax brackets, to make it sound as if they wanted only to extend cuts for top earners.
The centerpiece of the pledge is a $700 billion tax cut that would only go to the top two percent, the wealthiest two percent of Americans, Obama said.
Ninety-eight percent of you would not get this tax cut.
A White House spokesman said the presidents facts were accurate.
Ninety-eight percent of you would not get this tax cut.
A White House spokesman said the presidents facts were accurate.
What a pathetic bunch of liars.
Barry is starting to sound more and more like Saddam Hussein. Whatever sticks and whatever the people will believe is what he’ll go with.
Of course its money from Saudi Arabia, its coming again to get Obama re-elected, and in turn the price of gas and diesel fuel will rise as well.
Isn’t the DNC running a bunch of ads running with an unproven allegation as if it were a fact and somehow the GOP’s fault??
I’d say the Chamber should sue the DNC for a billion dollars for defamation
Projection.
Obama is greatly funded by foreign money.
What a twit. If you haven't noticed, Barry, your little personality cult has been over for a while. Seeing your mug 24/7 for the last two years has deprogrammed all but the incourageably stupid.
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He is so full of BS....
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His name should be....
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BARRY....
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Wait for it....
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BROWN....
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If the chamber opens up its books and says heres where our political money is coming from, here are the million dollar, two or three million dollar contributions weve gotten from this company or that industry, then well know, Axelrod said. But until they do that, all we have is their assertion.
Yeah, well ....
If the administration opens up its books and says heres my birth certificate, then well know, .... But until they do that, all we have is their assertion.
I am sure the Republicans would be happy to stop taking money from corporations on exactly the same day the Democrats stop taking money from unions, and corporations, and media, and Hollywood.
So he hates the US Chamber of Commerce. Is he so gutless that he’s got to make up charges to justify that hatred?
The centerpiece of the pledge is a $700 billion tax cut that would only go to the top two percent, the wealthiest two percent of Americans, Obama said.
Ninety-eight percent of you would not get this tax cut.
A White House spokesman said the presidents facts were accurate.
What a pathetic bunch of liars.
It's like grading your own high school book report.
Touche!
http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2008/04/obama-getting-campaign-cash-support.html
Islamics funded Obama’s campaign and he has the gall to come up with a speech like this?
Liar, Liar, Liar
“There are some who say blah blah blah.”
Ahhhh shaddappa you face, Barky.
I did love seeing during the the Falcons vs. Browns game today that it was Chamber of Commerce day or something like that announced on national news... thus, even the sports loving thug in the whitehouse likely heard it.
(why truth doesn't matter to liberals and how they rationalize changing the meaning of the Constitution)
Barack Obama quote from "The Audacity of Hope":
Its not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent.Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth,
the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or ism, any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad. The Founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
You have to read his “lie” very carefully. He is parsing the parsing of the words. As in the tax cut that the top 2% get won’t be “received” by the rest of the 98%. Duh?
Also, see that word of “get”. The government owns all our money and we “get” what we deserve to “get”.
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