The White House’s current effort to disparage the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an act of desperation in light of the low poll numbers of the Democratic Party going into the November midterm, as some have pointed out. But perhaps President Barack Obama should address some questions about his own fundraising before attacking other organizations.
On the Oct. 11 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier,” former host and network contributor Brit Hume took on the issue of administration officials using the bully pulpit to push these charges. According to Hume, the charges are baseless and even the White House’s allies in the mainstream media are questioning this strategy.
“The attacks by President Obama and the Democratic Party on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others say as much as any poll about the plight of the Democrats this fall,” Hume said. “The claim of foreign money flowing into Republican coffers is so transparently without proof that even organs of the mainstream media are saying so. No evidence has emerged, said The New York Times. The TV critic of the Baltimore Sun called the Democratic ad about foreign money, quote, ‘a new low in the midterm battle.’ The fact that President Obama himself has joined in such claims suggest that he and his party have given up all hope of appealing to swing voters who dislike this kind of attack. They now seem focused solely on trying to turn out Democratic base voters to keep the expected mid-term rout from turning into a massacre.”
He noted some problem areas for the president, particularly dealing with the economy, and said these charges are a product of the administration’s inability to fix the situation. However, he asked why a president that claimed he was going to change the status quo in Washington is hanging his hat on allegations generated by a left-wing George Soros-funded operation, allegations that remind the public that Obama has never answered questions about funding for his 2008 campaign.
“Amid high unemployment and widespread sentiment across the right and center that Obama and his party have gone too far left, even well-established Democratic politicians in such Democratic strongholds as California and New England are vulnerable,” Hume continued. “Thus, a president and the party who campaigned on hope and change ceases on an unsupported claim that originated on a left-wing website to raise dark questions about secret and foreign influence in the election. And never mind that a still undetermined amount of cash flowed in to the Obama's campaign two years ago from donors who used prepaid credit cards and other devices that hid their actual identities."
Host Bret Baier asked if there were any developments on the questions surrounding Obama’s 2008 campaign, which seem to have been forgotten about two years later just as these allegations have arose.
“We don't. And back at the time, there was one woman who was down on the campaign finance list as having given almost $175,000 to the Obama campaign,” Hume replied. “She was well out in Missouri. She got a telephone call from The Washington Post to ask her about it. She said she hadn't given any money. That scores of other contributors, we still don't know who they are, had given that money in her name.”
Hume’s prediction: This is business as usual and this trumped up meme will fade into obscurity just as those charges against Obama did following the 2008 presidential election.
“It's just one of the many ways that you can give money without being known, without being identified to these campaigns,” he said. “Both parties do it. There's nothing illegal about it. There was no big scandal back then, and I doubt it will amount to much of a big scandal now.”
