Anguished Lead NYT Editorial Accuses Obama of Giving Up High Ground on Super PACs
Staking a principled hard-left position, the New York Times wailed over
President Obama’s reversal on campaign finance in its lead editorial
Wednesday, “Another Campaign for Sale – President Obama reverses position and joins the sleazy ‘Super PAC’ money race.” (Yet the paper's news coverage failed to highlight those hypocrisies.)
Two years ago, while delivering his State
of the Union address, President Obama looked the Supreme Court justices
in the face and told them they were wrong to have allowed special
interests to spend without limits on campaigns. “I don’t think American
elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests,” he
said. “They should be decided by the American people.”
On
Monday, the president abandoned that fundamental principle and gave in
to the culture of the Citizens United decision that he once denounced as
a “threat to our democracy.”
His aides announced that the Obama
campaign would begin to assist the “super PAC” that can raise and spend
unlimited sums to support the president’s re-election effort. Even White
House and cabinet officials are expected to appear at fund-raising
events for Priorities USA Action.
The announcement fully
implicates the president, his campaign and his administration in the
pollution of the political system unleashed by Citizens United and
related court decisions. Corporations, unions and wealthy
individuals are already writing huge checks -- with no restrictions --
to political action committees supporting individual candidates, which
have become bag men for campaigns that still nominally operate under
federal limits.
....
But now Mr. Obama has given up that higher ground. He
had already undermined the public financing system for presidential
campaigns by refusing to use it in 2008, but this is much worse. In that
campaign, he at least forswore money from independent groups and
lobbyists. Now he is relying on a super PAC that can accept money from
anyone.
He is also telling the country that simply getting re-elected is bigger than standing on principle.
