New Republic Editor: Great That Obama Broke Campaign Financing Pledge

Most liberal commentators have preferred not to dwell on Barack Obama's broken promise to accept public financing of his campaign. For years, liberals have been at the forefront of demanding such public financing with pious lectures about the corrupting effects of money on politics. So the McCain-Feingold public financing law was passed and guess who was the first presidential candidate to opt out of that system? The Lightworker who flat out lied to the public when he earlier pledged to accept public financing. So when Obama announced he was breaking his public financing pledge a few months ago, there was some minor grumbling from liberals but since then they have entered the cone of silence on this issue due to their embarrassment about this topic. However, one liberal has spoken out about Obama's broken pledge. To condemn him? Nope. The New Republic Editor-in-Chief, Marty Peretz, is absolutely exulting in the fact that Obama lied to the public by breaking his public financing pledge (emphasis mine):

Frankly, I am glad that the Democrats have finally gotten over their nearly four decades long obsession with campaign financing reform. I always thought that it was not a matter of money corrupting candidates but of money going primarily to Republicans. Democrats do have a penchant for self-righteousness.  I hope it is finished, at least on this issue.

Of course, Peretz would today have that strong penchant for self-righteousness if Obama kept his promise and it had been John McCain who opted out of public financing.

Even so, the Democrats didn't do at all badly, what with those 527s and other independent vehicles that were engaged in the campaign, although independent of the party. Both Al Gore and John Kerry collected less money than their Republican opponents. But the margins were not enormous.

Still, Barack Obama has caused a revolution in presidential fund-raising. As the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times pointed out in Monday's editions, Obama raised $150 million, with 633,000 contributors giving an average of $86 each to his campaign during the month of September. Or a total of $600 million up to October 1.

And how many of those contributions are coming from overseas or bundled? Here are the Obama bundled contributions from the infamous Lehman Brothers:

John Rhea - (over $500,000) Co-Head of Lehman Bros. Global Investment Banking
Mark Gilbert - (over $500,000) Lehman Brothers Senior Executive
Christine Forester - (over $500,000) Lehman Brothers Senior Executive
Theodore Janulis – Bundler (over $100,000) & Lehman Brothers Head of Global Mort.
Nadja Fidelia – Bundler (over $50,000) & Managing Director of Lehman Brothers

Meanwhile Peretz is laughing at John McCain for being such a shmo as  to actually accept public financing instead of breaking his pledge like Obama:

You have to have some pity for John McCain who stood by his commitment to the federal law he had sponsored and which allowed only so much fundraising (and spending) if the candidate decided to take matching funds from the government. I supposed you could say that this was a principled decision.  I suspect, however, that it was a prudential one. McCain realized he had not and could not energize even his supporters to give what they usually did in other elections.

Woo Hoo! Isn't it great that Obama lied to us about accepting public financing? And what a jerk John McCain is  because he "stood by his commitment." Thanks, Marty, for revealing your inner hypocrite. 

Oh, and since the NewsBusters Eye of Sauron is now upon The New Republic once again, what do we see from that periodical's resident expert on Joe Biden, Jonathan Chait,  about the latest big gaffe from the Democrat vice-presidential candidate? How about nothing? Complete silence despite the fact that Chait had this to say about Biden last year:

Biden looks as if he’s the product of a laboratory experiment designed to create the world’s worst presidential candidate. 

Chait was right as we saw recently. However, that New Republic senior editor seems to have entered a witness protection program on the subject of Joe Biden.  And remember all you New Republic folks, the NewsBusters Eye of Sauron remains focused in your direction. There is no escaping it.