On of my favorite political/historical writers, Victor David Hansen does an excellent job explaining the damage the MSM has done to its own reputation and credibility.

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OGFhOWY3YTZk...MjNjMGNhMTc3ZjYyMWM=

The End of Journalism
Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place.

By Victor Davis Hanson

There have always been media biases and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather’s career imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the service record of George W. Bush. We’ve known for a long time — from various polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well as surveys of public perceptions — that the vast majority of journalists identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.

Yet we have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the American people. Here were four areas of national interest that were largely ignored.

CAMPAIGN FINANCING
For years an axiom of the liberal establishment was the need for public campaign financing — and the corrosive role of private money in poisoning the election process. The most prominent Republican who crossed party lines to ensure the passage of national public campaign financing was John McCain — a maverick stance that cost him dearly among conservatives who resented bitterly federal interference in political expression.

In contrast, Barack Obama, remember, promised that he would accept both public funding and the limitations that went along with it, and would “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” Then in June 2008, Obama abruptly reneged, bowing out entirely from government financing, the first presidential nominee in the general election to do that since the system was created in 1976.

Obama has now raised over $600 million, by far the largest campaign chest in American political history. In many states he enjoys a four-to-one advantage in campaign funding — most telling in his scheduled eleventh-hour, 30-minute specials that will not be answered by the publicly financed and poorer McCain campaign.

The story that the media chose to ignore was not merely the Obama about-face on public financing, or even the enormous amounts of money that he has raised — some of it under dubious circumstances involving foreign donors, prepaid credit cards, and false names. Instead, they were absolutely quiet about a historic end to liberal support for public financing.

For all practical purposes, public financing of the presidential general election is now dead. No Republican will ever agree to it again. No Democrat can ever again dare to defend a system destroyed by Obama. All future worries about the dangers of big money and big politics will fall on deaf ears.

Surely, there will come a time when the Democratic Party, whether for ethical or practical reasons, will sorely regret dismantling the very safeguards that for over three decades it had insisted were critical for the survival of the republic.

Imagine the reaction of the New York Times or the Washington Post had John McCain renounced his promise to participate in public campaign financing, proceeded instead to amass $600 million and outraise the publicly financed Barack Obama four-to-one, and begun airing special 30-minute unanswered infomercials during the last week of the campaign.

THE VP CANDIDATES
We know now almost all the details of Sarah Palin’s pregnancies, whether the trooper who tasered her nephew went to stun or half stun, the cost of her clothes, and her personal expenses — indeed, almost everything except how a mother of so many children gets elected councilwoman, mayor, and governor, routs an entrenched old-boy cadre, while maintaining near record levels of public support.

Yet the American public knows almost nothing of what it should about the extraordinary career of Joe Biden, the 36-year veteran of the Senate. In unprecedented fashion, Biden has simply avoided the press for most of the last two months, confident that the media instead would deconstruct almost every word of “good looking” Sarah Palin’s numerous interviews with mostly hostile interrogators.


By accepted standards of behavior, Biden has sadly proven wanting. He has committed almost every classical sin of character — plagiarism, false biography, racial insensitivity, and serial fabrication. And because of media silence, we don’t know whether he was kidding when he said America would not need to burn coal, or that Hezbollah was out of Lebanon, or that FDR addressed the nation on television as president in 1929 (surely a record for historical fictions in a single thought), or that the public would turn sour on Obama once he was challenged by our enemies abroad. In response, the media reported that the very public Sarah Palin was avoiding the press while the very private Joe Biden shunned interviews and was chained to the teleprompter.

For two months now, the media reaction to Biden’s inanity has been simply “that’s just ol’ Joe, now let’s turn to Palin,” who, in the space of two months, has been reduced from a popular successful governor to a backwoods creationist, who will ban books and champion white secessionist causes. The respective coverage of the two candidates is ironic in a variety of ways, but in one especially — almost every charge against Palin (that she is under wraps, untruthful, and inept) was applicable only to Biden.

So we are about to elect a vice president about whom we know only that he has been around a long time, but little else — and nothing at all why exactly Joe Biden says the most astounding and often lunatic things.

Imagine the reaction of Newsweek or Time had moose-hunting mom Sarah Palin claimed FDR went on television to address the nation as President in 1929, or warned America that our enemies abroad would test John McCain and that his response would result in a radical loss of his popularity at home.

THE PAST AS PRESENT
In 2004, few Americans knew Barack Obama. In 2008, they may elect him. Surely his past was of more interest than his present serial denials of it. Whatever the media’s feelings about the current Barack Obama, there should have been some story that the Obama of 2008 is radically different from the Obama who was largely consistent and predictable for the prior 30 years.

Each Obama metamorphosis in itself might be attributed to the normal evolution to the middle, as a candidate shifts from the primary to the general election. But in the case of Obama, we witnessed not a shift, but a complete transformation to an entirely new persona — in almost every imaginable sense of the word. Name an issue — FISA, NAFTA, guns, abortion, capital punishment, coal, nuclear power, drilling, Iran, Jerusalem, the surge — and Obama’s position today is not that of just a year ago.

Until 2005, Obama was in communication with Bill Ayers by e-mail and phone, despite Ayers reprehensible braggadocio in 2001 that he remained an unrepentant terrorist. Rev. Wright was an invaluable spiritual advisor — until spring of 2008. Father Pfleger was praised as an intimate friend in 2004 — and vanished off the radar in 2008. The media might have asked not just why these rather dubious figures were once so close to, and then so distant from, Obama; but why were there so many people like Rashid Khalidi and Tony Rezko in Obama’s past in the first place?

Behind the Olympian calm of Obama, there was always a rather disturbing record of extra-electoral politics completely ignored by the media. If one were disturbed by the present shenanigans of ACORN or the bizarre national call for Americans simply to skip work on election day to help elect Obama (who would pay for that?), one would only have to remember that in 1996 Obama took the extraordinary step of suing to eliminate all his primary rivals by challenging their petition signatures of mostly African-American voters.

In 2004, there was an even more remarkable chain of events in which the sealed divorce records of both his principle primary rival Blair Hull and general election foe, Jack Ryan, were mysteriously leaked, effectively ensuring Obama a Senate seat without serious opposition. These were not artifacts of a typical political career, but extraordinary events in themselves that might well have shed light on present campaign tactics — and yet largely remain unknown to the American people.

Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked.



SOCIALISM?
The eleventh-hour McCain allegations of Obama’s advocacy for a share-the-wealth socialism were generally ignored by the media, or if covered, written off as neo-McCarthyism. But there were two legitimate, but again neglected, issues.

The first was the nature of the Obama tax plan. The problem was not merely upping the income tax rates on those who made $250,000 (or was it $200,000, or was it $150,000, or both, or none?), but its aggregate effect in combination with lifting the FICA ceilings on high incomes on top of existing Medicare contributions and often high state income taxes.

In other words, Americans who live in high-tax, expensive states like a New York or California could in theory face collective confiscatory tax rates of 65 percent or so on much of their income. And, depending on the nature of Obama’s proposed tax exemptions, on the other end of the spectrum we might well see almost half the nation’s wage earners pay no federal income tax at all.

Questions arise, but were again not explored: How wise is it to exempt one out of every two income earners from any worry over how the nation gathers its federal income tax revenue? And when credits are added to the plan, are we now essentially not cutting or raising taxes, but simply diverting wealth from those who pay into the system to those who do not?

A practical effect of socialism is often defined as curbing productive incentives by ensuring the poorer need not endanger their exemptions and credits by seeking greater income; and discouraging the wealthy from seeking greater income, given that nearly two-thirds of additional wealth would be lost to taxes. Surely that discussion might have been of interest to the American people.

Second, the real story was not John McCain’s characterization of such plans, but both inadvertent, and serial descriptions of them, past and present, by Barack Obama himself. “Spreading the wealth around” gains currency when collated to past interviews in which Obama talked at length about, and in regret at, judicial impracticalities in accomplishing his own desire to redistribute income. “Tragedy” is frequent in the Obama vocabulary, but largely confined to two contexts: the tragic history of the United States (e.g., deemed analogous to that of Nazi Germany during World War II), and the tragic unwillingness or inability to use judicial means to correct economic inequality in non-democratic fashion.

In this regard, remember Obama’s revealing comment that he was interested only in “fairness” in increasing capital-gains taxes, despite the bothersome fact that past moderate reductions in rates had, in fact, brought in greater revenue to government. Again, fossilized ideology trumps empiricism.

Imagine the reaction of NPR and PBS had John McCain advocated something like abolishing all capital gains taxes, or repealing incomes taxes in favor of a national retail sales tax.

The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates.

Worse still, the suicide of both print and electronic journalism has ensured that, should Barack Obama be elected president, the public will only then learn what they should have known far earlier about their commander-in-chief — but in circumstances and from sources they may well regret.

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

So this guy writes a partisan article in the conservative National Review Online that bemoans the liberal medias loss of objectivity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Institution

I suppose mr light chaser is a fox news watcher?

So it "advocacy media" when liberals do it. What is it called when Fox News and the think-tank generated Op-ed pieces flood the media? And it is rich that his guy is calling it "advocacy" when what he is wound up about is the NON-REPORTING of crap he deems newsworthy.

Wow. So Obama changed his stance on campaign financing, went against his party's long-held position, and used good old-fashioned hustling for private money to finance his campaign? Doesn't that make him a "maverick"? Isn't switching to other side's position what made Joe Lieberman so popular with Republicans?

And his "article" runs down the McCain top 10 list--all the oldies but goodies are there. Wright, Ayers, Rezko, spread the wealth socialism, ACORN, even managed a dig at Joe the Senator, and dug up an old gem about Jack Ryan's divorce records. And each charge is linked with open-mouthed gasps: Can you imagine if this were a Republican!! Yeah, those poor Republicans never get away with anything, do they...

The truth is that every one of these stories has been examined in depth by real journalists, and every one has been shown to be either outright lies or blown out of proportion to the facts. And the lack of credibility is found in the illogical associations being made. Are we really supposed to believe that Obama, who is supposedly a radical muslim, sat for 20 years in the United Church of Christ listening to Rev. Wright, an association from which he became friendly with socialist terrorists who advocate wealth redistribution--wait for it--via the capital gains tax??? Just how stupid does someone have to be to swallow all that? And what self-respecting journalist would publish such obvious political smears?

If anything, it shows that journalism is alive and well, because it is debunking myths, hostile slime stories and whisper campaigns like the far-right keeps generating.

quote:

Originally posted by proudliberal:
I suppose mr light chaser is a fox news watcher?

I listen more than I watch. If one wants to be informed , one should actually watch a news network versus a campaign network. Fox continues to take a beating from uninformed Leftists who never watch the channel, but that minority will continue to diminish. Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

From the latest Pew research (who actually took their own numbers and wrote a distorted piece, so re-sorted for benefit of even the most dense of readers):

http://journalism.org/node/13437

Tone of election coverage was divided into negative, neutral, and positive for McCain and Obama.

Fox MSNBC CNN Overall Media
McCain Obama McCain Obama McCain Obama McCain Obama
Negative 40 40 73 14 61 39 57 29
Neutral 38 35 17 43 26 25 29 35
Positive 22 25 10 43 13 36 14 36

So, you might want to re-evaluate who is biased and who has attempted to influence this election with its coverage. It sure ain't Fox.

quote:

Originally posted by Jawbone:
Just how stupid does someone have to be to swallow all that?

JB, I could debate all your points, but, really, to what end? If you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore your candidate's past, that's great. The media has enabled you to do so with a straight face.

As far as being stupid, I'll post Mr. Hansen's academic credentials, and you post yours. By the way, Hansen is a registered Democrat! lol

"Hanson is a registered Democrat, but a conservative who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections.[5] He has been named a neoconservative by some commentators[6][7], and has stated that: "I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative."[8] Feeling that the current Democratic party does not have a morally responsible approach to foreign policy and no longer addresses the concerns of ordinary Americans, Hanson writes: "The Democratic Party reminds me of the Republicans circa 1965 or so – impotent, shrill, no ideas, conspiratorial, reactive, out-of-touch with most Americans, isolationist, and full of embarrassing spokesmen."

Hanson, who is of Swedish ancestry, grew up on a family farm at Selma, in the San Joaquin Valley of California. His mother was a lawyer and judge, his father an educator and college administrator. Along with his older brother Nils and fraternal twin Alfred, he attended public schools and graduated from Selma High School. At Roosevelt Junior High, he and Alfred were in a band, "Mustard Outhouse". Hanson received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1975[citation needed] and his Ph.D. in classics from Stanford University in 1980. He is a Protestant Christian.[3]

Hanson is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Fellow in California Studies at the Claremont Institute. Until recently, he was professor at California State University, Fresno, where he began teaching in 1984, having created the classics program at that institution.

In 1991 Hanson was awarded an American Philological Association's Excellence in Teaching Award, which is awarded to undergraduate teachers of Greek and Latin. He has been a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), as well as holding the visiting Shifrin Chair of Military History at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland (2002–03). He was a visiting professor at Hillsdale College in 2004, 2006, and 2007.[4]

Hanson writes two weekly columns, one for National Review and one syndicated by Tribune Media Services, and has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, American Heritage, City Journal, The American Spectator, Policy Review, the Claremont Review of Books, The New Criterion, and The Weekly Standard, among other publications. In 2006, he started blogging at Pajamas Media. In 2007, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson

quote:

Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

Interesting observation to make before presenting the latest Pew research "figures."

I do not need a research study to tell me Fox News and MSNBC are biased in the extreme. I've got eyes and ears of my own.

quote:

As far as being stupid, I'll post Mr. Hansen's academic credentials, and you post yours.

I believe it was the Wizard of Oz who told the scarecrow that you don't need a brain to look smart, all you need is a diploma. I did not say you'd have to be stupid to write it--only to believe it. I'm quite sure he is smart enough not to believe the lies and garbage he is writing--and I expect he is doing it for the same reason all prostitutes do what they do. Just as I expect someone who "registers" Democrat but votes Republican will drop their drawers for cash.

And he could have 14 Nobel Prizes and be the inventor of fire. None of that gives his article credibility. Especially when all it does is cover the same old ground.

quote:

If you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore your candidate's past, that's great. The media has enabled you to do so with a straight face.

If my head truly were in the sand, then the expression on my face is hardly important. I think you are borrowing a Bushism.
But to respond to assertion, I am keenly interested in Obama's past--just not the Republican distortion of it. This piece is nothing more than a rehashing of Republican talking points we have been bombarded with for months. If you want to pretend this work has some scholarly authority because the guy who sold his name to it has an impressive (in your view) resume--that's YOUR choice. But Hanson having National Review, American Spectator, Weekly Standard, Pajama Media and a medal from George Bush on his resume isn't likely to convince anyone of his lack of bias, or yours.

quote:

Originally posted by Jawbone:

quote:

Figures don't lie, but liars figure.

Interesting observation to make before presenting the latest Pew research "figures."

I do not need a research study to tell me Fox News and MSNBC are biased in the extreme. I've got eyes and ears of my own.

quote:

As far as being stupid, I'll post Mr. Hansen's academic credentials, and you post yours.

I believe it was the Wizard of Oz who told the scarecrow that you don't need a brain to look smart, all you need is a diploma. I did not say you'd have to be stupid to write it--only to believe it. I'm quite sure he is smart enough not to believe the lies and garbage he is writing--and I expect he is doing it for the same reason all prostitutes do what they do. Just as I expect someone who "registers" Democrat but votes Republican will drop their drawers for cash.

And he could have 14 Nobel Prizes and be the inventor of fire. None of that gives his article credibility. Especially when all it does is cover the same old ground.

quote:

If you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore your candidate's past, that's great. The media has enabled you to do so with a straight face.

If my head truly were in the sand, then the expression on my face is hardly important. I think you are borrowing a Bushism.
But to respond to assertion, I am keenly interested in Obama's past--just not the Republican distortion of it. This piece is nothing more than a rehashing of Republican talking points we have been bombarded with for months. If you want to pretend this work has some scholarly authority because the guy who sold his name to it has an impressive (in your view) resume--that's YOUR choice. But Hanson having National Review, American Spectator, Weekly Standard, Pajama Media and a medal from George Bush on his resume isn't likely to convince anyone of his lack of bias, or yours.

To sum up:
1. Media studies are irrelevant. JB's opinion based on anecdotal experience = the truth.
2. Anyone with principles that don't agree with JB's = prostitute (if they express those principles).
3. If A>B and B>C, then C>A. Makes perfect sense. Using your twisted logic, if I want A, and the closest option is B, I should desire C. Maybe "C" for "change", in whatever form?
4. You're keenly interested in Obama's past, have been "bombarded" with facts about it, and are not troubled by it. I'd really like to hear the facts about Rezco, Ayers, Wright, Khalidi, Alinsky, Pfleger, and other guys "in the neighborhood". I'll wait at the edge of my seat for you to separate the wheat from the chaff and to provide the "proper", illuminated references.
5. While you're at it, please enlighten me as to why the Obama campaign disabled the credit card security feature on its donation site that matches credit card numbers to addresses. Such a feature might, oh, I don't know, help prevent election fraud.

You'd make a great attorney.

Do the rolleyes help make my case?

To rehash:

1.If lightchaser presents an article or opinion, no other views are acceptable.

2. Anecdotal evidence is not acceptable in presenting one's own opinion. In order to have a valid opinion, it must be referenced to a source deemed credible by lightchaser, who reveres journalists only when they validate his bias.

3.A Democrat is someone not to be trusted, who represents flawed logic and anti-American thinking--unless said Democrat sides with Republicans, and can be used to validate a Republican viewpoint.

4. If a litany of allegations and guilt by association can be repeated enough times, and reprinted in enough forms with names of respected journalists (see #2) it is no longer alleged guilt, it is affirmed guilt.

5. Republicans want desperately to label Obama. They keep trying to find one that fits. They've tried Muslim, liberal, radical, elitist, socialist, Marxist, terrorist, and even called him an old school Chicago machine politician. The fact that those labels are at odds with each other hasn't deterred them. They really need to pick one and run with it.

quote:

Originally posted by lightchaser:
While you're at it, please enlighten me as to why the Obama campaign disabled the credit card security feature on its donation site that matches credit card numbers to addresses. Such a feature might, oh, I don't know, help prevent election fraud.

I'm not sure I can enlighten you if you can't distinguish between "election fraud" and "campaign donation fraud." I do not know the facts as to whether Obama's campaign "turned off" the credit card identifier, but given the fact that this claim is going around in emails and is all over the internet, I have serious doubts. Sounds like just another one of the hundreds of Republican smear tactics used against Obama. They cannot sing their candidate's praises, so they are reduced to demeaning his opponent.

quote:

You'd make a great attorney.

I'll take that as the sarcastic, left-handed compliment it was intended to be. I have no doubt you would make an excellent social worker.

quote:

Do the rolleyes help make my case?

Not really. I'd say your application of them was far too liberal.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jawbone,

Jawbone,

You do realize, do you not, that hidden in the story about Obama's aunt who overstayed her visa was actually a proven instance of an illegal campaign contribution? Obama's aunt donated $260 to the campaign, and as she is not an American citizen, that was an illegal donation. Now, the Obama camp returned the money without being pressed to do so, but that shows the bias in the media in that they weren't all over the story as they would have been with McCain. It also raises enough questions that an audit of Obama's campaign finances would not be wholly out of line.

I don't know if the $260 contribution in and of itself would rise to the level of being a serious offense, but I do think it gives us a hint that it may be prudent to look closer.

So your theory is that had a similar occurrence been discovered in the McCain campaign donations, the MSM would have been "all over it", and bias can be assumed from projected media response? In other words, you are going to fall for the age-old complaint that "they'd never let our side get away with THAT."

You know, life really becomes more pleasant when you accept that an unbiased source is a fictional one. Only someone incapable of forming an opinion is unbiased. What is far more important than bias, since this thread is on the topic of journalism, is accuracy. "Just the facts, Ma'am." Leave opinion to editorial pages, and recognize think-tank generated hack pieces for what they are. In the next couple of days, expect some big whoppers to come out. October surprises are an American tradition, and given the nasty tone of this campaign, nothing would surprise me.

And if Obama is enjoying some sort of media darling status, it will be short-lived. Ask Brittaney Spears about media obsession gone bad.

The end of journalism began when fox news invaded the airwaves.

Oh, and let's not forget talk radio. What a joke.

quote:

So your theory is that had a similar occurrence been discovered in the McCain campaign donations, the MSM would have been "all over it", and bias can be assumed from projected media response?

I actually DO believe the MSM would be all over it, yes. And given that there are a lot of questions being asked about Obama's campaign funds, it does make you wonder.

I'm not sure if the allegation about the credit card feature is founded or not, and frankly, I don't want to try (sounds to me like a good way to drum up donations: start a rumor about the credit card feature and then eat up the donations while every sap tries it...lol!). But I DO know that Obama has been vetted less than ANY candidate in my memory; when we ask about his past, we are pointed to his biography and told that any questions people have are "racist conspiracies". Why the secrecy?

I'm among those, though, who believe that, while Obama won't be the best Presidential candidate, he won't be the worst, by a long shot. I really, REALLY hope I'm not proven wrong on this one.

quote:

Originally posted by folkieokie:

quote:

So your theory is that had a similar occurrence been discovered in the McCain campaign donations, the MSM would have been "all over it", and bias can be assumed from projected media response?

I actually DO believe the MSM would be all over it, yes. And given that there are a lot of questions being asked about Obama's campaign funds, it does make you wonder.

I'm not sure if the allegation about the credit card feature is founded or not, and frankly, I don't want to try (sounds to me like a good way to drum up donations: start a rumor about the credit card feature and then eat up the donations while every sap tries it...lol!).

quote:

FEC Rules Leave Loopholes for Online Donation Data -

The result has been a recent spate of news stories raising questions about apparently implausible or suspicious donations to the presidential campaigns. Right-of-center activists also claim that Barack Obama's campaign has collected tens of millions of dollars from suspect overseas donors. Their complaints spurred the Republican National Committee on Oct. 6 to ask the Federal Election Commission for an investigation of the Obama donations.

To test the campaigns' practices, this author bought two pre-paid American Express gift cards worth $25 each to donate to the Obama and McCain campaigns online. As required by law, the campaigns' Web sites asked for, and National Journal provided, the donor's correct name, location and employment. The cards were purchased with cash at a Washington, D.C., drugstore, and the campaigns' Web sites were accessed through a public computer at a library in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The Obama campaign's Web site accepted the $25 donation, but the McCain campaign's Web site rejected it.

Rebecca Donatelli, president of Campaign Solutions of Alexandria, Va., which processes donations for John McCain, said her system rejected the donation because American Express could not verify that the donor lived at the address given with the online contribution.

The McCain campaign does accept normal credit card donations because staffers can easily check whether the owner of the credit card shares the same billing address as the listed donor, she said. That address-check process costs the campaign about 12 cents, she said.

"We could lower our standards and accept more money... but this is John McCain's campaign, and he wants to root out fraud in fundraising and have everything open and as honest as possible," said Donatelli.

Obama campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro said, "We review our contributions to ensure that the information donors provide is complete and verifiable. We would only accept a contribution from a pre-paid credit card if the donor provides complete and verifiable information, consistent with FEC guidelines."

FEC spokesman Robert Biersack said, "The committees are responsible for providing accurate information about the identifying characteristics of their donors.... The precise mechanisms of that are not necessarily written into the regulations."

Donors must provide, and campaigns must send to the FEC, the donor's name, employer and home city. But if a campaign has incomplete information on a donor, it is safe from sanctions if the campaign sends a letter to the donor's address asking for more information, Biersack said. A copy of a passport is also sufficient to validate an overseas donor's eligibility, he said.

Campaign funding experts say that real-world difficulties present a significant barrier to anyone trying to make surreptitious direct donations. For example, National Journal's $25 donation would have to be quadrupled to $100, and then repeated 10,000 times, to deliver $1 million to the Obama campaign, which has collected more than $600 million from at least 3.1 million donors.

Federal law bars individuals from donating more than $2,300 to a presidential campaign (and a similar amount to a primary campaign), and also requires campaigns to make a public disclosure to the FEC of the names of all donors who contribute more than $200 in one or more transactions.

That is how Pamela Geller, an advocate of limited government who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs, discovered invalid donations to the Obama campaign from such fictitious or prohibited donors as Doodad Pro, Hbkjb jkbkj, and a pair of Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip who donated $24,321 by July. Since early October, Newsweek, the New York Times and other established publications have described some of Geller's discoveries. But by ignoring these donations until last week, "the media has abdicated its role as public servant," she said.