Jackson Jambalaya

Beneath stupid. Nixon had a secret enemies list. Obama is publishing public data. Sorta like this blog often does.

One reason this info is public in the first place is so people can notice it?

Leave it to an attorney to get their axle wrapped around the word 'secret'.

At least I made an actual point, 6:46.

Romney should do the same thing with Obama donors. Let any who care have the data to look at. Why not?

Anderson, you are sounding no better than the talking heads on TV as are the others.

Geesh. It is all about the money now, don't care how they get it, their donors want headlines from anyone in the Presidential running.

The question we really should be asking ourselves, who should get the preferential treatment?

To this end, I ask, where are you going to invest your kid's college fund?

Personally, I would give it to Bain Capitol, although with Blackstone in the running, I'd give them all my assets and say 'see me in 5 years.' Then I would retire.

In this case, as a private investor I can have it both ways, in this political race - you can't.

The point is not that the information is already public. The point is Obama's handlers are publishing it in order to spook people. Is Anderson suggesting that publication is actually some sort of public service?

The apparent cure to being "outed" by one side or the other as a supporter of one side or the other is to give money to BOTH sides. Right? Right?

Every major lobby I can think of expends resources on BOTH sides. Show me the money! So if I decided that either one was better than the other, I should give $1M to the better one, but also give $1M to the other one so I can tell them to keep their trap shut. Now, Who's comin' with me?

Somebody call the waaaahhmbulance, because we have a crybaby pile-up in this thread.

Campaign donations are speech (saith the Supreme Court). You speak out on politics, you are subject to being criticized for that speech. Welcome to democracy, capitalist-style.

If these donors had made public statements supporting Romney, would there be some problem with Obama's posting those statements on a web page? Let me answer that for you: no.

Posting their donations is the same thing. If you're ashamed to give Romney money, then don't. Why should any of these people feel intimidated by being identified as Romney donors? Aren't they proud of their candidate and their values?

Since I'm explaining myself poorly, let me hand the mike to Dave Weigel:

That explains the problem with the enemies list, which John Dean described -- before he switched sides -- as a guide on how to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." It doesn't explain the problem with a public guide to a candidate's biggest donors, whose names and donation sizes were made available on FEC forms. Strassel informs us that these men have committed no crimes -- which nobody's disputing -- and provides no evidence of the administration using incumbent powers to nail them. She just lists a number of times that Obama has criticized -- sorry, "PUBLICLY TARGETED" -- donors/industries spending big to defeat the Obama campaign. The closest she gets to an abuse of power is that the administration's "ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts." That's not quite a frivolous IRS audit, is it? * * *

Can someone point me to the part of the Constitution that guarantees your free speech won't result in disfavored treatment? Strassel is like an activist judge assigning some new right -- the right never to have to explain yourself if you bankroll a candidate who'll get to write or sign laws.

Anderson; while you often make good points well, you also often fail to understand points made by others. MY point (to you) and that of many others is the listing, not the fact that those on the list donated or whether they should be ashamed. The whole point of the discussion is Obama's unending willingness (nae, effort) to do anything underhanded, overhanded or sidehanded he can to gain a vote or cancel one. If he thought it would gain him one vote he'd crap on his mother-in-law's salad plate at a state dinner in full view of the NBC camera.

The argument is NOT what is legal, what defines speech or who has access to what lists. The argument is Obama's publication of a list with no good purpose. If a good purpose (defined by me as serving the greater good) exists, please state it.

... you also often fail to understand points made by others.

Nah, he's an attorney. He just disregards 'em outright. Crowley does the same.

You simply assume that there's "no good purpose." Who are you to judge that on behalf of the Obama campaign?

If there's any good purpose to the requirement in the 1st place that these donations be made public, then I am at a loss to discern how identifying "who donated to Romney" is objectionable.

As for politicians' lust for votes ... if you think your words don't apply equally to Romney and to *anyone* with the ego to run for president, then welcome to the grown-ups' world.

... Good attorneys don't disregard opposing points, but we *do* have trouble answering poorly-stated arguments.

Obama is behaving like Castro or Chavez. The slimy innuendos directed at people who support his opponents needs to be highlighted repeatedly; it shows he cannot run on his record so is trying desperately to divert everyone's attention in any way he can.

An aside to KF: some of my posts show up; some don't. I check in on various computers at work running different operating systems and/or versions of IE. Sometimes the box under the comment box lists the option to comment anonymously or some other way. Other times the box ends with the boxes where you type the gobbledygook to prove you've not a spambot. I wonder if the times that bottom section is missing is the reason some posts never reach you.

2:57 obviously knows nothing about Obama, or Castro, or Chavez.

(What "slimy innuendos" are those? Does anyone believe in presenting any evidence, or is this just something everyone knows, like that Obama was born in Kenya?)

Whatever you think of the "GM is alive and bin Laden is dead" line, it certainly sounds to me like Obama's record.

I agree with Anderson. I'd like Romney to do the same.

Follow the money people.

I want to know who will have influence in an administration.

If Obama covers up illegal activity used to obtain information,and ignores court orders to provide information about that illegal activity then I'll go along with the analogy to Nixon.

This is much ado about nothing.

To recap: I asked Anderson if he felt there was a 'good purpose' in publication of the list, to state it. He chose not to state a good reason but took time to critique my request of him.

And in the finest lawyerly fashion, Anderson took my challenge to him and twisted it around to wonder rhetorically why the same shouldn't apply to Romney. Romney isn't the point here, but Anderson already knew that.

And while defining himself as a 'good attorney' he slips a knife in me by suggesting I'm new to the adult world. Great courtroom jestering.

Have pity on him Shadowfax. It has to be extremely difficult to be a supporter of POTUS Epic Fail. What are folks like Anderson going to do? Tout the Kenyan's record?