I wish I was more educated concerning what this post is about....

No, no, no nooooo.

John McCain has a comprehensive economic policy.

That's GOOD for the Middle East.

Plus, Jordan is our ally.

Plus, you're playing the race card.

Plus, let's see... John McCain is a war hero. He's a straight talking maverick. Uh, did I say he's a war hero?

Uh, ... um ... he was tortured. Uh ... um ...

Barack HUSSEIN Obama listened to sermons for 25 years from a BLACK preacher. He has a funny name, and big ears. And he's SKINNY. And a CELEBRITY. And they like him in EUROPE. That's OLD Europe.

Uh ... um ... War Hero?

So John McCain is a radical muslim jihadist fifth column agent seeking the overthrow of our Christian nation, by infiltrating the Republican party, rising to the level of senator, then to President of the United States. Bleeds our nation white by continuing the failed policies of President Dick Cheney, and his puppet George W. Bush by fomenting war against muslim nations.

Dam'it, I knew there was something fishy about that guy!

Quick, call homeland security and have John McCain arrested at once, and taken to guantanamo bay for...uh...lets call it, "processing."

"A Jordanian chap named Abdullah
for favors is paying top dollah.
And who stands to gain?
A man named McCain.
So why won't the press raise a hollah?'

OK, a McCain campaign bundler has ties to middle eastern nationals. The bundler delivered a bunch of money to the McCain campaign. Somebody noticed that the names associated with the contributions were (1) not political, (2) many were democrats, and (3) many others were McCain opponents. Somebody began to wonder just who might the actual source of the money. It looks like the bundler was funneling money from the middle east through one of his Jordanian friends. That is against the law. Getting into the weeds of the story makes it even worse. It seems the money may actually be coming from a gang of war profiteers.

The story sources well and has real heft, but the mainstream media won't touch it. It doesn't fit the John McCain story arc.

TPM has been following the story.

Thank you, lampwick.

For Renny, it's about the contributions to the McCain campaign from people who aren't normally political donors, some of whom don't even support McCain.

www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/us/politics/07mccain.html

Sorry I don't know how to make the link active, but just cut and paste.

Note that "the press" in the form of the New York Times HAS reported on this.

Thank you ...

Oh, as soon as somebody asked the McCain campaign about the bundler's work, they gave the money back.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Cal Gal's right -- welcome to America, where it's easier to change the value of pi than it is to change The (straight-talking, mavericky) Narrative.

I feel sometimes like the nation is trapped in the body of a 12-year old who wants a particulay cellphone, and the reply always is "Who pays the bills here? You'll get the president we want you to get, or you won't get any president at all."

What I can't figure out is why this Ambinder fellow is cited as much as he is. I haven't read many of his posts, but of the ones I have, they're either borderline incoherent or in no way interesting or insightful. He's like a less malevolent Jimmy Kirchick.

So why does his name pop up all over the place? Savvy marketing?

Can we put this to music?

Uh, hasn't that already been done?

McCain campaign returns $50,000 of Mustafa Abu Naba'a dirty money, and now ...

THE MUSICAL!!!
.

Cal Gal, The NYT has reported the story, but if the story involved Barack Obama the coverage would be 24/7 wall to wall.

Can we put this to music? I'm not sure I recognize the meter.

"Like a Rolling Stone" (the verses) works--though that song's more like a chanted free verse than a song . . .

This has Classic Republican written all over it. Strange, Enron-like accounting gimmicks? Check. War profiteering? Check. Election malfeasance? Check. So naturally it gets a pass from the media -- so banal as not to merit a second glance. Republicans are expected to do this kind of crap, so naturally if it were Obama, it would be up in a 100-point font on Drudge's site and Dana Milbank would be posting a tut-tutting story about it a few days later.

dsAbso-fucking-lutely, Kevin. For Gods sake, conservatives are still all atwitter over Obama's birth certificate, for fucks sake! Are they worried he wasn't really born or something?

These smelly campaign contributions from the Middle East would be front page news for weeks f they had gone to Obamads

so what exactly is it that keeps ambinder from making this a bigger story? he's got a platform if he thinks this is a story that matters.

I love the fact that every time I see "bundler" in a headline I misread it as "blunder". Let's see lots of John McCain "blunder" headlines for a while.

If Barak received a donation from a group of perfectly legit donors located in the heart of the Bible belt,,,
where the donations were funneled thru Benjamin Franklin society,,,,,
that provided homes for orphaned Iraqi war veterans children,,,,

it would be a bigger deal than this was made out to be!!!!!!!!!

"I'm not sure I recognize the meter."

I do; it's commonly referred to as IOKIYARic Pentameter.

There once was a candidate named McCain
Who raised money right and left to campaign
Then some dubious moolah
Came from Abdullah
Though just how, John still can't explain

http://smallprecautions.blogspot.com/2008/08/poem-for-mccain.html

Ron Byers wrote: "The story sources well and has real heft, but the mainstream media won't touch it. It doesn't fit the John McCain story arc."

Which is a polite way of saying "it doesn't help the corporate-owned media's propaganda campaign to put Their Man McCain in the White House to continue the CheneyBush policies of huge tax cuts for the ultra-rich and deregulation of media ownership."

Can't we move questions like this from thought experiment to actual experiment? Get a liberal pundit/blogger and conservative pundit/blogger and lock them away without any access to television, newspapers, magazines, radio, Internet, etc. Give them stories stripped of names and political affiliations and let them comment.

For practical reasons this would probably only work with the pundits in seclusion for brief periods of time - perhaps up to a week. But for a truly revealing experiment they would be locked away before the election, or even well before the election so they wouldn't even know which way the presidential and congressional races were leaning. Start feeding them fact scenarios after there's a new president (and they don't know from which party) and a new congress (and they don't know which party controls each chamber) and we'll see how consistent their views are.

I can't believe this isn't already being done - either with bloggers or tv pundits. (Unless it's been tried but no one wants to tell their actual views without getting the talking points first. That could be embarrasing. Would Kevin do it?)

Better trolls please.

McCain has been shaking hands with crooks in Washington for over thirty years.

Correction: he was one of the Keating Five in 1989. "cleared of impropriety but criticized for poor judgment"

How about "McCain: Straight-talking with lobbyists for 20 years."

Oh my god, you have it all wrong.

Here are the rules:

1. Everything McCain does is correct.

So, if McCain is accepting money from Jordanian families to fund his campaign, HE IS DOING IT FOR MURKA, YOU COMMIE PINKO TERRORIST LOVER! Don't question his authoritah!

I'm surprised we haven't had any Clinton Did It, Too! trolls show up yet. They seem not to have gotten the memo that Hillary is not the Democratic nominee. Either that, or we're supposed to get outraged that someone who ran for the Democratic nomination and didn't get it was doing the same thing as the Republican presidential candidate because ... um .... just because, okay?!?!

How about "McCain: Snuggling-up to the Bushjerks who smeared him last time he ran."

They were collected by a foreign national which may or may not be legal. The donations are being returned. There does not seem to be much of a story here.

I hope the RNC is paying you in cash, Fat Guy. You're not even trying any more.

"...if the story involved Barack Obama the coverage would be 24/7 wall to wall."

Oh, I totally agree. It's just that it's not like it hasn't been in the MSM at all.

to the tune of "If I Was A Carpenter"

If there was a group of quest-
ionable donations,
From some guy named Abdullah,
In the Jordanian nation.
And if he was a scum suspect,
Of war profiteering,
If he gave bread to Obama,
Would you call for a hearing?

Save outrage for Democrats,
Don't cause Saint John sorrow,
My friends, I love America,
Give me your tomorrow.

kind of to the tune of "For Once In My Life":

If there once was a bunch
Of suspicious donations
From someone named Abdullah,

And he was a crook,
And was also from Jordan,
Oh how the press would hollah!

But not if he gave to McCain and not 'bama!
They just ignore Maverick John's sleaze-o-rama!
For once in their lives,
Would it kill them to be fair?

Oops.
thersites at 2:04

Obama has a problem with this too, which is why he cannot make more noise about this. Supposedly, his campaign contributions were coming from a bundler with ties to Hamas. That's why his campaign person in charge of Muslim-community relations resigned. It's all over the PUMA-type websites.

Are these the same websites that claimed to have Michelle Obama's "whitey" video?

Actually Nemo, it was discussed on the Diane Rehm show this morning. Sorry this doesn't fit into your frame of "everything I dislike must be completely totally bogus and I can hate on them" meme.

Irony Alert

From one of Kevin's posts yesterday referencing Ezra Klein who was criticizing the McCain campaign:
The Washington Post reports that the McCain campaign is offering its supporters "points" -- redeemable for awesome McCain-themed prizes! -- if they go and spread the campaign's message...

From this post: Kevin writes "The Obama campaign would like me to pass along".

Since Nemo hasn't yet learned about Google, I'll provide a link:

http://news.google.com/news?oe=q=obama+hamas

As I said, I heard about it on the Diane Rehm show, where it was dismissed by Byron York of all people (I think it was York) as pretty much not a big deal.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/08/obamas-muslim-advisera-victim.html

"Dave Hiott E-mail News tips

Federal beat reporter Jason Trahan reports that the home-grown Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case has reached into the Obama campaign:

And as with everything HLF, the links are serpentine and, as jurors last year found out, hard to follow. But here goes:

Obama's advisor on Muslim affairs, Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, quit this week after it was revealed that eight years ago, he served on a board of a Muslim trust for a few weeks with a guy named Jamal Said. Said, needless to say, has a long history of trouble, and once Asbahi says he learned about Said's past, he quit the board.

So what's all the fuss about?

First, Said is one of 200-plus unindicted co-conspirators named by prosecutors in the HLF case. In particular, Said was a member "of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee" which, as the government argued last year's trial, was formed in the 1980s and coordinated support for Hamas here.

The trust board on which Asbahi and Said served in 2000 is itself controlled by the North American Islamic Trust -- also on the HLF unindicted co-conspirators list.

Now take a breath. We're almost done.

Said is the imam at the Bridgeview Mosque in Illinois near Chicago. The mosque has been the center of controversy for its fundamentalist bent for years, and is itself central to the HLF story.

Bridgeview is the same mosque where a man named Muhammad Salah was once a leader. He is credited with tipping off investigators to HLF's Hamas ties after he spilled the beans to Israeli agents who detained him in 1993. The Israelis, of course, tipped off their American counterparts.

And as the DMN reported in the run-up to last year's calamity of a HLF trial, it was Salah's "explanation of how Hamas raised funds in the U.S. was key to federal investigators, who set to work gaining intelligence on Holy Land."

Clear as mud, eh? No wonder last year's batch of jurors gave up after 19 days."

In December 1966, when John McCain requested his first combat assignment in Vietnam, Barack Obama turned 5 years old and was enjoying the freedoms a child should enjoy.

As Obama turned 7, McCain had survived a burning jet fire on the USS Forrestal and had just flown his 23rd bombing mission over communist North Vietnam.

In 1973, as Obama reached age 12, McCain was finally released from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Hanoi Hilton.

At age 15, when Obama was still in high school, McCain became the commanding officer of a Naval Training Squadron in Florida. He turned a poorly managed military unit into a distinguished, combat-ready team.

When Obama reached the legal age of 21 and was experimenting with pot and cocaine, McCain declined an admiral promotion and ran for and was elected to Congress.

By 1987, Obama was a young man of 25 and McCain had assumed the office of senator from Arizona (after a successful four-year tour in the U.S. House of Representatives).

At age 36, Obama looked on as Sen. McCain was named one of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in America.

Whom do we choose as our next leader? Do we choose a man with proven military and political achievements, or a man with little experience other than a stint as a community leader and junior senator? Decisions, decisions!

Chad, you made the case for McCain being older than Obama. But you're preaching to the choir here. We already knew that.