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what about Kos claiming that they got it legitimately from Obama or on his behalf, or did I get that wrong?"
Thanks in return. I personally don't know if they claimed they got it from Obama, or for that matter actually got it from him or his staff. I most certainly believe what you say. My only question is why a rational person as yourself would believe anything the Daily Kos claims.
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a person must have a legitimate business reason to do the query, too." No prosecutor would go after this person. He might get fired, but who would really care. They would be instantly famous for for taking down a presidential candidate and would be able to leverage this into money.
My only question is why a rational person as yourself would believe anything the Daily Kos claims. Because the Obama campaign hasn't repudiated them, and in fact, linked the same image or a copy of the image, that was there. To me, sharing the image is a tacit endorsement of what Kos said.
On the other hand, I've said from the beginning that I thought this was a rogue operator who thought they were helping, that the Obama webmasters thought it was smart to link it to their (at the time) brand new Fight the Smears site without thinking through all the consequences, and they are now stuck with the mess they created. Therefore, they are just ignoring it now and hoping it goes away.
-PJ