Beltway Snark

No siree, not one little bit.

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks.

Obama has also launched his own response ad, directly addressing Simmons’ attempt to link him to domestic terror.

The project is “a knowing and willful attempt to violate the strictures of federal election law,” Obama general counsel Bob Bauer wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney last week in a letter provided to Politico. Bauer argued that by advocating Obama’s defeat, the ad should be subject to the contribution limits of federal campaign law, not the anything-goes regime of issue advocacy.

Bauer’s letter called on the Justice Department to open “an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.”

“This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It’s the classic maneuver: If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit,” said a spokesman for the American Issues Project, Christian Pinkston, who said his group’s non-profit status allowed it to participate in elections as long as it does a majority of policy work, which it plans to do.

The wisest course of action here would have been for Team Obama to STFU and let this thing die. Instead now they look like people with something to hide. Plus it keeps the story in the news. And it gives Team McCain a chance to make an ad about how Obama is against free speech. Good work guys.

Perhaps if the left was truly concerned about being Swiftboated again they would have taken the time to vet Obama and make sure that there wasn’t anything like this that could be used against him.

UPDATE – Obambi is still crying about this. You would think there would be at least someone in his camp that would tell him to let it go before he looks like an even bigger douche than he already does. By the way, he still hasn’t refuted the content of the ad….