"The Substance Of The Times Story On Obama"

Hotline:

Ok, now to the merits. This is an interesting story, and it suggests that Obama was not as careful as he ought to have bee, or could have been. But our political antennae are buzzing here; our ethical antennae are silent. If Obama has a problem, this isn't it.

If a senior Disney Co. executive or a partner in a major institutional shareholder raises money for a candidate and the candidate's qualified visually impaired trust invests in Disney, it wouldn't raise any hackles. Say the candidate also supports, say, an FCC candidate who promises not to over police network television. So what?

In this case, Obama donor George W. Haywood, suggested that Obama employ UBS to manage his money. Obama's UBS-managed trust invested in, among many entities, a very small pharmaceutical company that was new to its field, and in a satellite communications "concerned" that was partly owned by one of his major contributors, the wonderfully named Jared Abbruzzese.

The difference here is not one of kind -- it's one of magnitude. The smaller the company, the more obscure the company is, the more a company’s backer has ties to the “Swift Boats,” the more suspicious one is supposed to become of the dynamics underlying the purchase. (Were the companies really obscure? Opinions differ. But if the Times pronounces them as "relatively obscure," then maybe they are.)

But if the ethical principle is: it's OK to invest in companies owned by your fundraisers, then journalists covering the story need to justify why the standard changes: in this telling, it's the obscurity of a purchase and not the purchase itself that's the issue. The Times suggests that Haywood recommended that Obama use UBS's broker in part because he knew that UBS would invest some of Obama's assets in the two companies partly owned by Haywood.

The ultimate consequences of the purchase provide no help, here. Obama lost money overall and divested himself as soon as the purchases were disclosed to him. The facts are on his side.

If you think Obama is lying and somehow directed his broker to purchase these stocks on Haywood's advice (and knew that Haywood was an investor in those companies), and if Obama planned to use his office to appropriate avian flu funds to the pharma company, then... say that. The circumstantial evidence does not begin to prove it.

The Times justifies the content of its story, and by implication, its page A-1 placement, by pointing to the fact that Obama "has made ethics a signature issue." Fair point. Media critics we're not, but we wonder if the Times editors hope this story sends a message to the candidates and the Times' competitors that it will closely scrutinize every ink mark, iota and giblit.

By the way: who's the broker? He/she's at the center of the storm, and we don't know who he/she is.

Lynn Sweet (Chicago Sun-Times) offers a less charitable account.

Cross-posted at www.seattleforbarackobama.com.