fredhiatt22.JPGDog bites man. Sun rises in east. The WaPo's Fred Hiatt tries to cover for Republicans:

We praised Mr. Obama last year when he asked the Federal Election Commission to let him raise private money for the general election but later give the money back and decide to participate in the public financing system if he were able to persuade the Republican nominee to do the same. In that circumstance, Mr. Obama's spokesman vowed, he would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." Well, the Republican nominee turns out to be John McCain, who agreed way back when to Mr. Obama's challenge. Where's Mr. Obama's aggressive pursuit now?

Here's the stinky dead elephant in the room that Hiatt's trying to distract you from noticing: John McCain has broken the law by exceeding his FEC public campaign spending limits for the primary. He's tried to weasel around it, and he's helped by the fact that the FEC is currently short a few commissioners, but it is an undeniable and inconvenient truth that John McCain is breaking the law. But Foggy Fred doesn't want you to know that inconvenient truth, so he chooses not to mention it.

Ah, but what about Obama? Isn't he breaking the law, too -- or at least his promise? Uh, no and no. Here's some more of what Foggy Fred doesn't want you to know, from way back in February of 2007:

A February 23 Los Angeles Times article, titled "Obama wags a finger at fundraising, but his other hand is out," falsely reported that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) 2008 presidential campaign "won't use public funds." In fact, Obama's campaign has indicated that it will "consider" restricting itself to public funding during the general election if the Republican candidate also does so.

So the Obama campaign's "promise" never really existed. Sorry, Foggy Fred, but how can one break a promise that was never made in the first place?

In fact, unlike McCain, Obama's campaign got FEC clearance to use private funds back on February 22, 2007 -- well over a year ago:

The article also suggested that there was a contrast between Obama's "repeated[] call[s] for limiting the role of money in politics" and the fact that he "left California this week with millions of dollars pledged to his campaign for the White House." In fact, the day before the article was published, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) had issued a draft advisory opinion approving Obama's request to "solicit and receive private contributions for the 2008 presidential general election while retaining the option of refunding the contributions and receiving public funds for the general election if he receives his party's nomination for President."

But again, this interferes with Foggy Fred's efforts to burnish McCain and trash Obama, so he won't tell you this. Instead, he cranks up the fog machine. Though, to judge from the utter failure of "bittergate", the newest of the fake scandals aimed Obama, to put any real dent in his Rasmussen (Obama 48, Clinton 44)
or Gallup (Obama 50, Clinton 41)* poll numbers, it looks like Fred and his fellow fogger Mistah Kurtz will have to work a lot harder than they anticipated.

*UPDATE:  Make that Obama 50, Clinton 40.  Bittergate, if anything, might be helping Obama!