Free Republic

On the eve of the Democratic convention, Trib colleague David M. Brown reported that Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of ACORN for services the Democrat's campaign says it “mistakenly misrepresented” in finance reports. An Obama spokesman said then that the FEC reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. -- a subsidiary of ACORN -- worked in "get-out-the-vote" projects. The original FEC finance reports listed the ACORN underling activities as polling, advance work and staging major events.

There’s much more to the story of Obama’s amended campaign finance reports than what Obama and the Obamedia will tell you. I will fill you in on what’s missing in a moment. What we have here, essentially, is Obama using a non-profit group called Citizens Services Inc. as a front to funnel payments to ACORN for campaign advance work. Obama officials say it’s no big deal. Nothing to see here. Move along. But where there’s left-wing laundering smoke, there’s fire. CSI has been the subject of a little-noticed complaint to the FEC by a Democrat who smelled something rotten going...