Laura Ingraham Blasts Newsweek Reporter for Dismissing a 'Giant Conspiracy' by Obama

Laura Ingraham Blasts Newsweek Reporter for Dismissing a 'Giant Conspiracy' by Obama

By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
October 7, 2008 - 07:16 ET

On Monday morning, Laura Ingraham interviewed Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff on her national radio show about his investigative report in the magazine about Barack Obama’s campaign being flagged for some obviously fraudulent donors:

Consider the cases of Obama donors "Doodad Pro" of Nunda, N.Y., who gave $17,130, and "Good Will" of Austin, Texas, who gave more than $11,000 – both in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit. In two recent letters to the Obama campaign, Federal Election Commission auditors flagged those (and other) donors and informed the campaign that the sums had to be returned. Neither name had ever been publicly reported because both individuals made online donations in $10 and $25 increments. "Good Will" listed his employer as "Loving" and his occupation as "You," while supplying as his address 1015 Norwood Park Boulevard, which is shared by the Austin nonprofit Goodwill Industries.

But the fairly chummy interview broke down when Ingraham started asking questions about why the Federal Election Commission would drag its feet on Obama for fear of looking "political." (Isn’t foot-dragging also a way of looking political?) Isikoff said the FEC will probably have no choice but to look into Newsweek’s findings, but may put off a broader probe.

He added that watchdogs at the (ahem, liberal) Center for Repsonsive Politics said the Obama campaign could have avoided this kind of embarrassing story with more disclosure of donor information, at least Zip codes, if not names, of its smaller donors.

"They like to say they are transparent," Isikoff said, but Ingraham jumped in and lamented, "It’s up to the journalists to stop sucking up to the Obama campaign, and actually go after them....It’s transparent that most people in the media are cheerleading for this Obama campaign. It’s obvious."

Isikoff suggested "I rather doubt, though, there’s some giant conspiracy going on...Giant conspiracy by whom?" Ingraham sharply replied: "I don’t think we know a darn thing about this because we don’t have enough people who are actually journalists today, doing their jobs, that’s my view."

Why do reporters simply assume there isn’t a deeper fraud among Democrats, especially, when as Isikoff reported, fully half of the money from Obama’s campaign is coming from undisclosed sources?

They all assumed that incidents like prison abuse at Abu Ghraib were approved in the Oval Office, but they can’t fathom the idea that the Democrats would play games with small donors, and maybe take foreign money, as in 1996? "Gut instinct" among reporters is too often another word for biased liberal assumptions.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.

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Way to go, Laura!

October 7, 2008 - 08:02 ET by motherbelt

"It’s up to the journalists to stop sucking up to the Obama campaign,
and actually go after them....It’s transparent that most people in the
media are cheerleading for this Obama campaign. It’s obvious."

Way to go, Laura!!

Great. Not only the media, but the FEC.

If they were dragging their feet on suspicious McCain contributions, it would be the number one story on the 6 o'clock news, Olbermann would be doing a "Special Comment" and Chris Matthews would be foaming at the mouth. (Yeah I know...)

OVER

October 7, 2008 - 08:08 ET by cvgbuckeye

When this election is all over, good, Obama or indifferent, it will mark the end of what we have known for over 200 years to be a free press; which has historically been an important element of Democracy.

It will have damaged our Democracy, at the very least, simply by it's shameful behavior. At the worst, it has subrogated our free election process by over-riding all senses of fair play, making it impossible for the Republicans to have any chance to win the election by tilting the playing field so far to the left that the table became vertical.

The average American citizens, unfortunately, indulge in only a passing interest of the political scene, therefore making the MSM's job much easier to control elections AND THE MSM knows it and has taken advantage of it.

I know that this will sound radical because most people will say "Oh, we are a strong country and if we made a mistake by allowing the MSM to control the election so as to elect Obama, we will survive it". I SAY NOT.

The MSM woke up one day and found itself to be in a state of hatred for all things USA and all things Conservative; in love with all things Socialist and all things Democrat. Socialism found its way to Marxism and Marxism bore a child named Obama.

If our nation does not awaken over the next month or so and we allow the MSM to control our elections by annointing Obama as king of the nation, our forefathers dream and the Great American Experiment will be on a life support system that we may not survive.

Thank you, New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, Hollywood, .........Sorry, all you brave young men and women lying asleep in all the Arlington Cemeteries of our past great AMERICA.

God Help America

So depressing

October 7, 2008 - 08:13 ET by deedledee

Since Laura's radio show is no longer in the Philly area, I was hopeful when I read it was on a Wilmington station...alas, they seem to have pre-empted most of her shows due to baseball and football coverage. It barely comes in clearly anyway so I'm going through a horrible political season without her wit and insight. Darn...if only I had money to get her member benefits of radio access. If the Dems control everything, maybe we'll all be paying for access unless they limit the internet too under the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

If you have a computer...

October 7, 2008 - 08:26 ET by jawebster1

you can get Laura's show on the internet. (Obviously, you have a computer if you can make a comment on NewsBusters.) Check out talkstreamlive.com. Jim Webster

Thank you!

October 7, 2008 - 09:23 ET by Red Jeep

Great site. Now I am free from the censorship of radio stations where I live.

Obama Says

October 7, 2008 - 08:21 ET by jaywl

Ben Labolt, Obama spokesman told Newsweek: "we will continue to review our fund-raising procedures". I am sure they will. They will want to understand how they got caught and how to avoid giving any more money back in the future. When I hear that phrase "half from people giving less than $200" I have always wondered how many people were giving $150 or whatever at a time over and over. Half a billion dollars is a lot of cash. Can you imagine the income tax consequences if all income received in smaller increments than $200 was unreported as to source and the IRS relied on voluntary reportage for tax purposes. Oh yeah, happy days! The FEC might as well close up shop, four years from now federal funding will be history and what was good for the goose will be good for the Republicans.

Agreed

October 7, 2008 - 08:21 ET by KC Mulville

I'd be willing to shrug off any claims of a conspiracy if it weren't for the memories of endless investigations into assumed schemes by Republicans.

At the very least, let's apply the same standard, Right now, there's an ongoing investigation into the Bush Administration's firing US Attorneys, even though it's within their constitutional right to fire them, without explanation. The Democrats are conducting the investigation under the excuse that the possibility of injecting politics into the process violated the spirit of the law, if not the letter. Of course, if we started prosecuting attitudes, or making it a crime to inject politics into some process (can you say State Department?), DC would shut down overnight.

OK, apply the same standard to Obama. Ooops! The letter of the law wasn't followed either. So, where are the cries for investigation?

FoxNews has a slogan: "We report, you decide."
The rest of the media follows a different slogan: "We'll report whatever we decide."

This is a conscious decision to not look at the facts

October 7, 2008 - 08:49 ET by c5then

Both by the campaign and the MSM. The campaign is specifically NOT checking the donations so as to allow small individual donations from the same 'person' to add up to tens of thousands of dollars. The MSM is simply not looking at the facts to give cover to the campaign as Isikoff is doing.

The Obama campaign is taking in illegal donations from organizations making up fake names, from foreign donors and from valid individuals giving more than the alowed $2300 limit to a single campaign.

There are already documented cases of this (two brothers from Ramallah sending in $25,000) and the FEC is dragging their feet to try and push the investigation past election day.

You want change? Give me a dollar.

They Can't IDENTIFY the Donors???

October 7, 2008 - 10:39 ET by Secret Conservative

OK, the Obama campaign states that they had NO IDEA this was going on, and they "can't identify" the donors, but even so, they're going to give the money back. GIVE ME A BREAK! Anytime you buy something online or donate online you have to use a credit card - and the Newsweek article states that the campaign is going to CREDIT the donations back to the CREDIT CARDS! You can't use a credit card online without giving specific information about the name of the credit card holder. So, if you can't IDENTIFY the donor, how can you POSSIBLY charge the credit card in the first place - and how can you possibly give the money back?

The Obama campaign, and the FEC, can easily identify the donors through the credit card information. Who's kidding who here?