David Corn

Washington Bureau Chief

Corn has broken stories on presidents, politicians, and other Washington players. He's written for numerous publications and is a talk show regular. His best-selling books include Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.

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In Iowa, a Complicated Threesome, as Edwards Aims at Obama

—By David Corn

| Wed Nov. 28, 2007 3:30 PM PST

John Edwards has generally gone easy on Barack Obama. His wife Elizabeth in August did call Obama "holier than thou." Edwards has gently questioned Obama's commitment to establishing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and he has wondered aloud about Obama's willingness to fight special interests and lobbyists, citing Obama's talk about bringing people together and rising above the political fray. But following a key rule of politics, Edwards has shot most of his arrows at front-running Hillary Clinton. That may be changing.

Obama has taken the lead in the most recent poll in Iowa, a do-or-die state for Edwards, who lags in third place behind Clinton. So today Edwards, who just last week was defending Obama from an Clinton's mockery, took direct aim at Obama. In a statement, Edwards denounced Obama's health care plan:

We need true universal health care reform that covers every single man, woman, and child in America. It is wrong to leave anyone without the care they need. A universal system will work better for all of us – delivering better care at lower cost. Barack Obama's plan leaves out 15 million people. The truth is that some people will choose not to buy insurance even though it's affordable, knowing that the rest of us will pay for their emergency room visits.

Edwards is jumping into the fight that has been going on between Clinton and Obama regarding their respective health care proposals. It's not a tremendous blast. But is this a sign that Edwards will be gunning for Obama and that the Democratic race, as the Iowa caucuses approach, will turn into a circular firing squad--which is what's been happening on the Republican side? In politics, as in much of life, a threesome can get quite complicated.

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Fred Thompson's New Watergate Ad: Get Me Rewrite!

—By David Corn

| Tue Nov. 27, 2007 2:55 PM PST

Fred Thompson has a new ad touting his days as the top Republican lawyer on the Senate Watergate committee's staff:

In the ad, he boasts of having "helped to expose the truth during Watergate."

The story is not that simple. As Thompson himself acknowledged in a 1975 book, right after the congressional Watergate investigators learned of Richard Nixon's clandestine taping system, Thompson tipped off the Nixon White House that the Capitol Hill gumshoes had uncovered this big secret. This was not S.O.P. for a prosecutor. (Thompson had been an assistant U.S. attorney previously.) A member of an investigative team usually does not unilaterally rush to tell the subject of a probe--via an unofficial back channel--that he or she has just discovered a possible treasure trove of evidence against the target.

Referring to this episode, Scott Armstrong, an investigator for the Democrats on the committee, in July told The Boston Globe, "Thompson was a mole for the White House. Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was."

The Nixon tapes show that Thompson also cooperated behind the scenes with the Nixon White House regarding how to handle the public testimony of John Dean, a White House lawyer who had turned against Nixon and his aides. (On those tapes, Nixon referred to Thompson as not "very smart" but "friendly," meaning friendly to the White House, not to children and puppies.) In a conversation with Nixon on June 11, 1973, shortly before Dean was to testify, J. Fred Buzhardt, a Nixon lawyer, informed the president that Thompson was "now willing to work with us" in trying to undermine Dean. "He was far more cooperative really than I expected him to be," Buzhardt remarked, noting that Thompson "said it's just getting to be a political dogfight." Buzhardt also told Nixon that Thompson was more willing to engage in political battle concerning the hearings than Senator Howard Baker, the top Republican on the Watergate committee, who had hired Thompson, a fellow Tennessean. (The transcripts of these tapes were published in 1997 in Abuse of Power, edited by Stanley Kutler.)

On his website, Thompson neglects to mention his role as a snitch and Nixon comrade. In his campaign bio, only one line describes his Watergate committee service:

He gained national attention for leading the line of inquiry that revealed the audio-taping system in the White House Oval Office.

That's not accurate.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Hypocrisy Alert: HRC Attacks Obama For Skirting Campaign Rules She Skirts

—By David Corn

| Mon Nov. 26, 2007 3:24 PM PST

You know the one about Caesar's wife?

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama has decried the dirty influence in Washington of lobbyists and their campaign contributions, suggesting that he--not Hillary Clinton--has the desire and ability to clean up Washington. After all, in the Senate, he did manage to pass an ethics and lobbying reform bill, and he has eschewed campaign contributions gathered ("bundled," in political parlance) by lobbyists. At the recent Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa, Obama proclaimed:

I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists -- and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President.

That was a not-too-subtle dig at Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is fueled and guided by lobbyists.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Ron Paul: Winning the Black Helicopter Vote

—By David Corn

| Sun Nov. 25, 2007 9:52 PM PST

Ron Paul's campaign (or is it a crusade?) is trying to engineer another "money bomb"--a one-day intense fundraising drive--on Monday, November 26. The last one, which was detonated on November 5, netted Paul over $4 million--an impressive sum for an outlying candidate who has refused to return a campaign donation from a neo-Nazi. One solicitation for this latest appeal captures the political culture of a slice of Paul's libertarian constituency:

Note the black helicopters--the symbol of anti-government, paranoid conspiracy theories. Yes, they're coming for you....

Breaking Campaign Laws: Crime That Does Pay

—By David Corn

| Tue Nov. 20, 2007 2:32 PM PST

Crime does pay...when it comes to breaking campaign finance laws.

A few days ago, the Federal Elections Commission settled a case against the Media Fund, a pro-Democratic 527 group that spent more than $50 million in so-called soft money in 2004 trying to influence the presidential election that year. What was the penalty assessed? $580,000. The Media Fund--which was partly bankrolled by George Soros--will have to pay that much in a fine. It sure sounds like a lot, but it's only a wee bit more than 1 percent of the money the group, which was headed by Harold Ickes, the former White House deputy chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, pumped into the campaign.

The FEC declared that the Media Fund, which is no longer active, had violated campaign finance laws by using unlimited contributions from labor unions and other financial benefactors (soft money, that is) for ads supporting John Kerry and attacking George Bush. (Here's one critical deconstruction of a Media Fund ad.) Lawyers for the Media Fund and other 527s have argued that in 2004 such activity was believed to be legal by the folks running 527s (which take their name from the provision of the tax code that applies to them), and the FEC has stated that the Media Fund did operate in accordance with the advice it received from its attorneys. But the FEC has ruled that only political committees that register with the FEC and abide by contribution limits and public disclosure requirements can directly attempt to influence a presidential election.

The Media Fund is the latest target of the FEC's crusade against the largely unregulated 527s that were operating in 2004. It has also gone after America Coming Together, another pro-Democratic campaign group, and two pro-GOP outfits: Progress for America Voter Fund and the Swfit Boat Veterans for Truth. (After the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, groups like these became major recipients of the soft money that used to flow to the political parties.) All together, these four groups spent $200 million in what the FEC has determined to be illegal soft money. All together, these four groups have to pay $2.4 million in fines.

These punishments--while historic for the FEC--will hardly serve as a deterrent. Such fines, which come long after the offending activity transpired, can easily be considered an inconvenience, the cost of doing business. They will do little to persuade political operators on both sides to throttle back.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]