Barack Obama: so hypocritical, it’s almost grotesque
Recently, President Obama joined in a campaign by the Democrats and other left-wingers to vilify the US Chamber of Commerce by accusing it of using foreign money to fund its political operations:
Referring to a study by the liberal group ThinkProgress that – correctly – notes that the US Chamber of Commerce has some funding sources abroad, including foreign corporations and American Chambers of Commerce around the world (or “AmChams”), the President said, “just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations.”
The president then took this step, saying, “groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won’t tell you where the money for their ads come from.”
Chamber officials say that money coming from foreign donors cannot be used for political activity under the 1907 Tillman Act, and that the charge is false.
Forget whether the charge is correct or not. Ignore the fact that this is a desperate, xenophobic smear job by a party facing a massacre at the polls.
It’s the hypocrisy that’s jaw-dropping, given that Obama’s own presidential campaign winked at foreign money. Michael Barone explains:
Glenn Reynolds nails this one: the Obama Democrats’ campaign riff against foreign donations to Democrats is bogus—and according to the New York Times, no less. This looks like a matter of projection, since it’s well documented that the 2008 Obama campaign did not put in place address verification software that would have routinely prevented most foreign donations. In effect they were encouraging donations by foreign nationals. Here’s the Washington Post on this back in October 2008: Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed. Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged.”
Go read the rest of the article and follow the other links back to reports from 2008 on the Obama campaign and odd donations. Here’s another. Obama and the Democrats engaged in rampant cheating regarding foreign donations, and now they have the gall to falsely accuse the Chamber of Commerce of doing what they themselves did?
Just another day of Life Under Alinsky Rules:
“Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”
And, we should add, “Lie about it and hope the rubes fall for it.” 
RELATED: Of course, in 2008 the Obama campaign was just following the precedent established by Clinton and Gore.
UPDATE: And here’s the cherry on top: The President’s chief political adviser, David Axelrod, says he doesn’t have to produce proof – it’s up to the Chamber of Commerce to prove their innocence. Wow. Just shameless.
(Crossposted at Public Secrets)