After loud, high-minded attacks on SuperPacs (and even launching a deceptive, in-person attack against the Supreme Court for its decision upholding them at last year's State of the Union), the President' has now decided to support one.
The reason lies in the fact that the President's fundraising isn't, ahem, nearly all he hoped it would be.
In another sense, however, the reversal falls perfectly within the framework of the President's longstanding hypocrisy when it comes to campaign finance. In 2008, he pledged to seek public financing for his election (and accept the accompanying restrictions). When it became clear he could flourish by breaking his pledge, he did it without hesitation -- becoming the first candidate to forgo public financing since the system was established in the '70's.
Now we have the same phenomenon. When it suits him, we have the high-minded President standing for campaign fundraising principle -- and then, when that principle threatens to constrain him, he turns on a "dime" and all the foregoing rhetoric becomes "inoperative."
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How emblematic of President Obama's modus operandi in so many areas -- from transparency to bipartisanship and so much, much more.
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