Ad Infinitum: Republican Trash Talk or Democratic Connivery? The Democratic Response and the Verdict

During the time all of these accusations were thrown around, the Obama campaign did everything they could to counter the Republican argument. In fact, no one in Obama’s campaign seemed to have questioned the amount, and many had taken pride in the amount they had accumulated. For instance, Bill Burton, an Obama spokesperson at the time stated: “Our campaign has shattered fund-raising records with donations from more than 2.5 million Americans. We have gone above and beyond the transparency requirements.” Burton assured the press that no campaign is completely protected from Internet-fraud, and confirms that Obama’s campaign will continue to examine any donation that seems capable of breaking a campaign finance law.

The Obama campaign has also seemed to have been willing to fix any wrongdoing that may have been caused by their website. For instance, the Obama campaign was accused, again, of retrieving funds from three brothers in Gaza. The story goes as follows: Three brothers from Palestine, considered of being associated to the Hamas group, have provided the Obama campaign with $33,500 in exchange for several Obama T-Shirts. The Edwan brothers, as they are called, love Obama, and wanted to sell the T-Shirts in Gaza to retrieve a profit. The Obama campaign has yet to make a reimbursement, even when they alleged they will. Pamela Gellar, who has done extensive research on the matter, writes this in her op-ed article:

" The Palestinians allegedly claimed “they were American citizens,” so said Obama's people. They listed their address zip code 972 (ironically the area code for Israel) and they input “GA,” the state abbreviation for Georgia. They actually lived in a Hamas controlled refugee camp. So, if Obama's people thought it was “Georgia,” why did they ship the tee shirts to the correct address in Gaza? Shipping overseas to a Gaza refugee camp is vastly different than the state next door."

The Obama campaign was willing to give the funds back. However, according to the WorldNetDaily (WND) interview with the Edwan brothers, the donation has not been given back.

Even though the Democrats were responsive and willing to refund any type of illegal contribution, we, as consumers and readers, must be aware of the Republican smear campaign that has been going on since the advent of the 2008 election. Here are some reasons why I think this whole incident is simply another version of Republican trash-talk:

1) Aaron Klein was the reporter who interviewed the Edwan brothers in Gaza, and he is viewed by his peers and by many others as being a conservative anti-Obama reporter who works for the right-wing WorldNetDaily.

2) Also, the allegations were reported the same time Senator John McCain let Sarah Palin off her leash. Palin’s unsupported accusations of Barack Obama made the Democrats question whether or not the Republican’s claim was the latest of a smear campaign against Obama.

3) There are no articles that claim the FEC is actually investigating the Obama campaign. The campaign has yet to been charged for retrieving illegal contributions and foreign funds. Also, it has been several months since these allegations surfaced and no one has been penalized for a wrongdoing.

4) The sources are questionable. For example, Kenneth R. Timmerman, according to his bio on wikipedia, is a Republican reporter who has been accused of yellow journalism, and who has been accused of stoking conflict with Iran. Also, Michael Isikoff is an investigative journalist who works with Newsweek. According to his bio, he loves breaking sensational news. In fact, he was the first one to reveal Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky to his executives at Newsweek. I believe that all investigative journalists search hard enough for the news that will satisfy their purpose or story. Other investigative journalists that have reported on this incident were Sarah Cohen and Matthew Mosk from the Washington Post. The Washington Post has been viewed as a pro-Republican newspaper.

5) Finally, everyone should not believe what is written on blogs. Even this one! For instance, Pamela Geller's information seemed as though it came from a blog and was posted on American Thinker. And, if you look at the sources from where I retrieved my information, most of them are from blog sites. The reason why I was constricted to these sites was the fact that there was not a lot of information from more valid and serious sources on this topic. This also plays as another factor on why I believe the Republican argument against Obama is weak.

The verdict is simple and clear: Republicans are trash talkers and we see this once again in their attempt to accuse Obama of retrieving illegal and foreign funds. And, this example serves Dr. Levinson's theory, or fact, well that Republicans are MEAN! Why isn't there much talk about Obama's supposed wrongdoings now? Oh that's right. There is no need to bring it up now because Republicans lost. Anyway, let us say everything that reporters and Republicans stated in their articles were true. Is it that bad if Democrats finally decided to play dirty? Its about time, if they did. Republicans have been doing it for so long. I wonder if there is a Democrat version of Karl Rove out there somewhere.

The bottom line is that Republicans knew that the White House was slipping out of their grasp. With this in mind they decided to go on a rampage and trash the presidential candidate in every way possible. Maybe his Internet site did lack an AVS or maybe he did allow prepaid credit cards. The campaign will reimburse those who contributed illegally. There was no reason to escalate the situation to an extent where Republicans seemed desperate and helpless.

Sources:

1) Pamela Gellar-http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/obamas_donor_ contributions_sil.html