Incompetent Dishonesty from the White House

Now is the time. History has fashioned the frame for a spectacular unforced error. The man and the moment have met.

What is remarkable about the Administration's current campaign against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (and Republicans in general) is not how dishonest it is. One expects that by now. What is remarkable is how transparently incompetent it is.

The President made a barely veiled accusation against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. From the New York Times:

"Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations," Mr. Obama said. "So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections."

This is textbook weasel talk. Both of the statements are true, but they are clearly intended to make a false insinuation: huge sums of money from foreign sources are being spent to influence American elections.

The charge was made more explicitly in an ad produced by the Democratic National Committee and released over the weekend. You can view the ad at FactCheck.Org. Here is a transcript of the narration:

Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie: They're Bush cronies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce: They're shills for big business. And they're stealing our democracy. Spending millions from secret donors to elect Republicans to do their bidding in Congress. It appears they've even taken secret foreign money to influence our elections. It's incredible: Republicans benefiting from secret foreign money. Tell the Bush crowd and the Chamber of Commerce: Stop stealing our democracy.

The President himself backed off of the charge in recent days, but Vice President in charge of calumny, Joe Biden, has kept at it.

What are the merits of the charge? FactCheck subtitles its entry: "Democrats peddle an unproven claim." Here is FactCheck's first paragraph:

Democrats, from President Barack Obama on down, are trying to turn an evidence-free allegation into a major campaign theme, claiming that foreign corporations are "stealing our democracy" with secret, illegal contributions funneled through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It's a claim with little basis in fact.

The New York Times got there first:

A closer examination shows that there is little evidence that what the chamber does in collecting overseas dues is improper or even unusual, according to both liberal and conservative election-law lawyers and campaign finance documents.

The Associated Press agrees:

The Obama administration and its allies are going all out against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and GOP-leaning groups, accusing them of using foreign money to help finance political ads. Trouble is, they're providing no evidence.

ABC News comes to the same conclusion:

While Obama is trying to tie Republicans and some of their backers to the specter of foreign interference in U.S. elections, an examination of the evidence provides little support for the claims.

Again, what is remarkable about the Administration's strategy is not that it dishonest, but that it is so blatantly and incompetently dishonest that three major news outlets and FactCheck were compelled to expose the Administration's charge for the lie it was.

This makes sense of an astonishing paragraph in Mark Halperin's recent piece in Time:

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.

As Halperin puts it, the President is caught in a vise. According to a Los Angeles Times poll, half of the people who once supported the President don't support him anymore. Of course, that includes people who reject the President because he hasn't gone far enough to the left for their tastes. An incompetent attack on Republicans will not please anyone on the right or left. It is not just the voters, however, but the political and media elites who have lost confidence in Barack Obama.

For an explanation of the President's woes, see my previous post.

Comments

[Donald Pay]

You can't rely on the media to do this sort of research. They are being paid off. All bulk of the Chamber's foreign money is going to the ten or twenty large media chains, and they aren't going to report this.

Here are the facts:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/13/chamber-foreign-funded-media/

[KB]

Oh for heaven's sake, Donald. You are starting to sound like a truther. The absence of evidence for your theory is just proof of how vast the conspiracy is.

[Donald Pay]

Well, had you bothered to read the link you would learn that not one of the reporters contacted ThinkProgress for facts or clarification. They did, however, contact and quote Chamber officials, who proceeded to lie and the lies got printed. The corporate press is protecting corporate interests, not reporting news.

[Donald Pay]

Well, now we have more information about the jobs lost due to outsourcing in those states where the US Chamber's foreign money drop is going. The candidates being targeted support efforts to revise trade agreements or oppose trade agreements which provide an unfair advantage to foreign companies.

http://campaignmoneywatch.com/chamber/outsourcing

[Donald Pay]

More info on Chambergate.

This one is interesting. First, the US Chamber's lies are exposed by quoting from the US Chamber's website. Also, US Chamber is running ads attacking the stimulus bill, although it lobbied for the stimulus bill.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/14/chamber-lie-members/

More info on the offshoring of US jobs by the foreign companies donating to the US Chamber's ad campaign.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/14/u-s-chamber-of-commerce-funded-by-top-offshoring-companies/

[George Mason]

Donald; You are so easily manipulated. Obama has the resources to produce any concrete evidence. He has not. This is just more of the blatant dishonesty we have come to expect from this administration. Bob Schieffer (BOB SCHIEFFER!!!) didn't even buy it. If the Republicans want to get nasty about this their first order of business come January should be to investigate the foreign donations made to the Obama campaign through the use of anonymous credit cards in 2008.

[Donald Pay]

Pffff. I think the investigation has begun. We're going to see some serious criminal indictments coming out of Chambergate.

[William]

Donald, if there are any indictments coming out of "Chambergate" they will be brought against those making these unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations.

The sites you're linking to are nothing more than propaganda coordinated by the most extreme elements of the left.

[Donald Pay]

Pfff. The information is coming right off the Chamber's website and from people inside the Chamber. Roll another one, William.

[William]

No thanks Donald, you're smoking enough glaucoma medication for both of us...

[Bill Fleming]

While we wait for proof that thinkprogress is right, I'd like to see a show of hands here as to how many would condemn the Chamber if what they're being accused of is in fact correct.

Notice Don's and my hands are already raised. How about the rest of you? Do you advocate for transparency here? If there are foreign dollars going to influence our elections, do you think we should at least be entitled to know about it? Don't you think the stockholders of the corporations should?

On a related matter, did any of you see how the stockholders of News Corp when they found out what he and the board were doing with their money. I think there's going to be a lot of that in the upcoming year. I don't think the American public will put up with all the deception and secrecy. At least I hope we won't.

[Bill Fleming]

Above: "...how the stockholders of News Corp REACTED..." Sorry.

[William]

BF,

We're in agreement on the transparency issue. I have no problem with "special interest groups" contributing to campaigns, I just want to know who they are.

[Jason]

Incompetent dishonesty from Herseth Sandlin or at least her staff sending out letters that federal laws don't have to be followed. Huh?
Google the honorable Staphanie Herseth Sandlin