Conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham gave a much-needed education to ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday about the tremendous double standard involving campaign contributions.
After Ingraham pointed out that Barack Obama is never held responsible for things MoveOn.org does, ABC's This Week host foolishly said, "The president's been held accountable for Bill Maher" leading the conservative talker to smartly respond, "Did he give that money back to Bill Maher?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
LAURA INGRAHAM, CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO HOST: There's something else going on here, though. We were seeing a couple of weeks ago evidence now -- the Obama campaign has an enemies list, where Mr. Vandersloot -- you know, very wealthy man getting involved in politics who is being demonized for various -- I guess social issues and so forth. This is another individual, Joe Ricketts, TD Ameritrade, billionaire, who does ending spending. As George said, it's an economic -- they focus on economic issues.
This to me was a shot across the bow that if you are a wealthy...
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: This wasn't from the Obama campaign.
INGRAHAM: If you are -- but if you are a wealthy, wealthy person in the United States, you happen to be conservative, you're going to get involved in this election, then we are going to watch everything that you do, and you sort of step over the line, you talk about past associations with President Obama, anything like that, we will try to destroy you. This means not even -- as far as I know, he didn't even see this proposal, I believe, George. And the idea that he was considering it was a total false narrative put forward by the New York Times to send a message to other people, don't you dare get involved in this election, in any type of, quote, "controversial way."
Ingraham made a great point here, especially given the gushing and fawning way the media responded to George Clooney's recent fundraiser for Obama.
It's been very clear for years if not decades the liberal press really don't care about campaign finance reform. What they want is less money going to Republicans.
Not surprisingly, California's perilously liberal lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom didn't agree with Ingraham:
GAVIN NEWSOM, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR CALIFORNIA: The difference was his name appeared in it with a quote that said, "Had John McCain produced a similar ad, Barack Obama would not be president today," which makes this more plausible that, George, maybe there's a gray area between what the New York Times said and what you're saying and more likely that there was some discussion. They had a URL, Character Matters, 54-page comprehensive report. They found and identified key leaders to lead. I'm not convinced that this wasn't further along.
(CROSSTALK)
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: The president's been held -- well, the president's been held accountable for Bill Maher and some others and for Hilary Rosen.
INGRAHAM: Oh, really? For Bill Maher?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Certainly, he was -- he was...
(CROSSTALK)
INGRAHAM: Did he give that money back to Bill Maher?
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... he got questions about it.
He got questions about it, but was he so pressured by his fans in the media that he was forced to instruct his Super PAC to return Maher's money?
Obviously not, and this indeed is indicative of the double standard by which Democrats and Republicans are treated by the press for their campaign finance activities.
The former sometimes get questioned for such activities while the latter are hounded to repudiate and oftentimes return funds.
Brava, Laura! Brava!
