On Obama's Illegal Donations

It appears that someone finally asked Barack Obama about how his website is illegally accepting donations.  Here's an excerpt of an interview with Charlie Gibson yesterday:

GIBSON: You're going to have a half an hour broadcast tonight on a number of the networks. And the expense is not inconsiderable to buy that much time.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: Aren't you able to buy it only because you broke a promise on campaign financing?

OBAMA: Well, look, there is no doubt that the amount of money that we've raised in this campaign has been extraordinary and surprised me as much as anybody — maybe more than anybody. What I would simply point to is that the way we have raised this money has been by expanding the pool of small donors in this country in an unprecedented way.

GIBSON: But you haven't released their names.

OBAMA: We've got...

GIBSON: We don't know who they are.

OBAMA: Well, look, the — a whole bunch of them were out here today. I mean, you're looking the people who are giving 5, 10, $25. Ordinary folks who have gotten impassioned about this campaign in a way that is unprecedented. And that, really, is...

GIBSON: Shouldn't we know the names of that list?

OBAMA: Look, you know, 3.1 million donors would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process. And we have done everything that's been asked of us under the FEC guidelines. These are small donors. They're ordinary folks. And the idea behind all campaign finance reform is to make sure that the public official is not bought and sold; that that public official is accountable to the public, that they are not subject to undue influence by big special interests in Washington and lobbyists.

And we don't take lobbyists' money. We don't take money from PACs. And there's no industry, there's no group out there that I owe favors to as a consequence of this campaign. In fact, I would argue that probably — should I be successful, I may come into the White House with fewer strings attached to me than just about any presidential candidate in history. I wasn't even supported by the establishment in the Democratic Party when I started this race.

So I don't have a lot of — a lot of chits out there that are going to be collected.

While some may think that's apparently chock full of hard-hitting questions, I would agree with Mark Steyn's take on it:

That's not a "hit", that's a Swedish massage by Princess Fluffy Bunny. That's Charlie Gibson appearing to cover himself while letting Obama get away with mush. A (Palin-style?) hit would have taken the conversation on a quite different tack:

OBAMA: What I would simply point to is that the way we have raised this money has been by expanding the pool of small donors in this country in an unprecedented way.

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION: What's unprecedented is that, unlike John McCain, your website disabled the standard credit-card security system used by almost all reputable online retailers. Why did you do that? And, given that of the record $150 million you raised in September two-thirds was raised under this systemically corrupted Internet operation, isn't it likely that a significant proportion of your half-hour infomercial was paid for by fraudulent donors? And, as to "expanding the pool of small donors in this country", what about the way you've expanded the pool of donors in other countries who've been able to make illegal contributions to your campaign because you switched off the AVS security checks?

OBAMA: I mean, you're looking the people who are giving 5, 10, $25. Ordinary folks who have gotten impassioned about this campaign in a way that is unprecedented. And that, really, is...

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION: Also a lot of extraordinary folks have gotten impassioned about your campaign. You've received contributions from, among others, a Mr Saddam Hussein, Mr A Hitler and Mr K Marx? How do you propose to return those contributions given that all three "donors" are deceased?

OBAMA: Look, you know, 3.1 million donors would be a pretty hard thing for us to be able to process...

INFORMED GIBSON QUESTION:  Why? I mean, you've had no problem "processing" the money, have you? And, if you hadn't monkeyed with the standard online retail data system, all you have to do is press a button and 3.1 million names and addresses pop right up. Ask Amazon. So why did you switch it off? And, if you yourself did not make that decision, who did?

The Senator terminates the interview to instruct an aide to have state and local officials look into this guy Gibson's child-support payments, tax liens, etc. Later, it emerges that Charlie the Anchor is not even a state-licensed interviewer.

Exactly.  Gibson let Obama off with some serious softballs, although I suppose some credit should be offered for even bringing up the subject at all.

At last check, the website is still accepting illegal, unverified, fraudulent donations.  Barack Obama is just days away from becoming the first President elected by obviously illegal money AND obviously illegal voter fraud.  How can we possibly view his administration with any sort of legitimacy?  The only thing we can do is prevent him from getting into office at all.

Spread the word about these illegal activities.  He can spin his relationships, he can spin his policies, but there are some things that not even the Obamessiah can spin.

There's my two cents.