{"id":7010,"date":"2012-05-02T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T22:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7010"},"modified":"2012-05-02T15:00:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-02T22:00:08","slug":"fox-news-hypocritically-attacks-obamas-fundraisers-while-ignoring-romneys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7010","title":{"rendered":"Fox News Hypocritically Attacks Obama’s Fundraisers While Ignoring Romney’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday fox News published a report<\/a> that purported to unveil “a veritable army”<\/em> of fundraisers working on behalf of President Obama’s reelection. The focus of the article was a practice known as bundling where supporters solicit their family, friends, and colleagues, to make a contribution to a candidate’s campaign. Bundlers can accumulate large amounts of total donations but each of the contributors is bound by the standard contribution limit of $2,500.<\/p>\n

The article on Fox was headlined “Meet the bundlers: Obama’s fundraising team a who’s who of Hollywood, media,”<\/em> and began by saying…<\/p>\n

“Bundlers are the original movers and shakers in the world of high-dollar campaign fundraising. And President Obama’s reelection machine has enlisted a veritable army of them — a roster that includes some of the biggest names in media and show business.<\/p>\n

“Among them are entertainment magnate Tyler Perry, actress Eva Longoria, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Vogue editor Anna Wintour. It’s just not Hollywood backing the president — Comcast executive David Cohen, as well as lawyers and finance titans from Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and other firms help complete the list of hundreds.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be noted that every contributor who donates $250 or more is subject to disclosure rules. The bundlers themselves are not. We know who is bundling for Obama because his campaign discloses their names, which Mitt Romney refuses to do. The only Romney bundlers who are known are registered lobbyists whom the law requires be disclosed. That’s why the OpenSecrets listing of Obama Bundlers<\/a> shows 532 names while the list of Romney’s bundlers<\/a> shows only 22. And, of course, all of Romney’s bundlers on his list are lobbyists. We have no idea how many other bundlers are working in Romney’s behalf. Obama has no lobbyists bundling for his campaign.<\/p>\n

The primary point of the Fox News article is that Obama has a large number of bundlers, many of whom are in the entertainment industry. Had Fox bothered to do just a modicum of research they would have discovered that only 25 (6%) of Obama’s bundlers are from Hollywood. What’s more, the implied criticism of bundling ignores the fact that the donors are actually disclosed, while contributions from corporations and billionaires to SuperPACs are are not. So there is transparency of bundling donations that does not exist with the SuperPACs that are a much bigger part of Romney’s operations.<\/p>\n

The problem with Fox’s analysis is that they can’t compare Obama’s fundraising to Romney’s because of Romney’s obsessive secrecy. Romney may have many more bundlers than Obama, we just don’t know. He may also have an army of Hollywood elitists bundling for him, we just don’t know that either. The only thing we know is that Romeny does rely heavily on lobbyists while Obama has none acting as bundlers. So Fox is being overtly hypocritical by criticizing Obama while letting Romney off the hook.<\/p>\n

If Fox had conducted the necessary research to be able to make appropriate comparisons, this might have been an interesting article. But since Romney’s campaign keeps everyone in the dark, perhaps that should have been the lede. What this article tells us about Obama is useless without comparative data for Romney, but the fact that Obama is forthcoming about his finances and Romney is not would have been the real story for any legitimate news enterprise. Of course the qualification of “legitimate news enterprise”<\/em> automatically rules out Fox.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of the hypocrisy of Fox is that just a few days ago they were complaining bitterly<\/a> about an Obama web site that identified a few of Romney’s big money backers. Fox characterized this as akin to the Nixon enemies list or McCarthyism. The comparison was ludicrous and utterly detached from reality. But it’s interesting that now Fox thinks it’s perfectly alright to disclose the names of Obama supporters without raising questions about Nixonian or McCarthyite paranoia. Just another example of the doubly standardized hypocrisy that Fox has developed into an art form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday fox News published a report that purported to unveil “a veritable army” of fundraisers working on behalf of President Obama’s reelection. The focus of the article was a practice known as bundling where supporters solicit their family, friends, and colleagues, to make a contribution to a candidate’s campaign. Bundlers can accumulate large amounts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[183,33,260],"class_list":["post-7010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-barack-obama","tag-fox-news","tag-mitt-romney"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-1P4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7702,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7702","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":0},"title":"Karl Rove Inadvertantly Argues Against His Own Fundraising Machine","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/2\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Wall Street Journal, once a respected financial news publisher before Rupert Murdoch got his hands on it, is now the home of rabidly partisan propagandists who seek only to advance self-serving political agendas. One of those is former Bush flack, Karl Rove. In an op-ed today, Rove addressed the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7846,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7846","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":1},"title":"Fox News Editorial Hypes Reagan-Blessed Email Service","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/23\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't send that email! Your \"liberal\" email account is undermining your values and your country. That's the allegation in a Fox News editorial by Michael Reagan. \"If you use a Gmail or Yahoo e-mail address and are pro-life, support gun rights and oppose ObamaCare, you are funding activities aimed at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8172,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=8172","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":2},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama’s Imaginary Foreign Fundraising","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/8\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A new report released by a right-wing organization is receiving a great deal of attention from the conservative media circus. The Government Accountability Institute's report alleges that President Obama is unlawfully soliciting and receiving donations from foreign nationals. At Fox Nation the headline is a sensationalistic \"Foreign Fundraising Scandal Rocks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6165,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6165","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":3},"title":"US News & World Report Gives A Lesson In Dishonest Polling","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/10\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are looking for a reliable way to conduct a poll that will provide bad news for a designated adversary, US News & World Report has a helpful example of how to accomplish your goal. All that's necessary is to select a few unrelated questions that leave respondents with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7601,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7601","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":4},"title":"Running Cover For Mitt Romney: Fox News Comes To The Rescue","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/16\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"So what's a Republican presidential candidate to do when he's asked too many questions for which he has no answers (or for which the answers are too damaging)? Run to Fox News, of course. Mitt Romney has absolutely no coherent response to the criticisms he is fielding on his tenure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7837,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7837","url_meta":{"origin":7010,"position":5},"title":"Press Pussies? Fox Nation Resorts To Profanity To Attack Obama And The Press","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/22\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A story today on Fox Nation featured a headline that other news organizations might have considered obscene: Press Pussies Soft on Obama. For the Fox Nationalists, obscenity is no barrier to another opportunity to smear the President. 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