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Annnnnd the WaPo does its best to spin away its own words on Raines.
RedState: Conservative News and Community — Friday is Funday, it seems! Alas, yes, they had to admit that they said what they quoted, and that they got it from Raines himself. (Via Hot Air Headlines It's hard to figure out which is the funniest bit: the fact that they tried giving McCain two Pinocchio noses for the knavish tactic of directly quoting them, the "we've sent out emails to the relevant people" (read: "we're going to stall until this goes away") bit, the fact that all of this got driven by an online ad - or that (according to comments) the first draft of ...

Paper That Was Basis For McCain Claim Of Obama-Raines Link Says He's "Exaggerating Wildly"
TPM Election Central — ... Now The Washington Post's very own fact-checker has declared that the McCain campaign is "exaggerating wildly," dismissing the Raines claim as "particularly dubious." ...

Washington Post Faults McCain For Relying On...Washington Post
The Corner on National Review Online — ... ] A number of journalists are trying hard to fit McCain's "Advice" ad into the now-established theme of the McCain campaign employing lies and underhanded tactics. The Obama campaign says the ad is a lie. Writers at Time and the Atlantic have suggested that it has racist overtones, because Franklin Raines is black, and Obama is black, and a photo depicting a generic victim of their alleged financial wrongheadedness is of a white woman. Now, the Washington Post fact checker takes McCain to task for relying on the Washington Post. Yes, the paper reported in July that Raines ...

Washington Post Says: Don't Trust Us
Classical Values — Washington Post Says: Don't Trust Us It seems that the Washington Post says that Franklin Raines really wasn't an Obama adviser. And by the way, you can't believe what we write in our newspaper. Talk about boosting the brand. The Obama campaign last night issued a statement by Raines insisting, "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." Obama spokesman Bill Burton went a little further, telling me in an e-mail that the campaign had "neither sought nor received" advice from Raines "on any matter." So what ...

The Deception Deception
The Corner on National Review Online — ... ] The Obama campaign and supportive political reporters clearly see they ve got a powerful tactic with the notion that McCain is dishonest or a liar. Never mind that all their charges are false, which they really appear to be. It works, and the campaign and reporters echo and quote each other to amplify the point. Some journalists are even willing to attack their own credibility to do it, as the Washington Post does in the piece Byron links to ...

Last Words: Friday Afternoon
The Caucus — ... a bit exaggerated, since what Mr. McCain criticized back then concerned accounting irregularities, not the mortgage meltdown. The campaigns have been feuding over their respective ties to the two entities, through ads and lists of high-profile figures who worked or lobbied the firms. The Washington Post finds the McCain contentions about Franklin Raines exaggerated, even though the source cited by the campaign for the connections was a Style profile of Mr. Raines in the Post. And The Post also ...

Obama's Fannie Mae 'Connection' (WaPo fact check finds none)
Democratic Underground Latest Breaking News — ... asked, and he said 'no.')" By Raines's own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues. I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls, and will let you know if I receive a reply. The Pinocchio Test The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." (...) Read more: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/o... The Washington Post does a great job ...

Fact-Checking the Fact-Checker
The Sundries Shack — ... The Washington Post has weighed in, in its “Fact Checker” column, on a John McCain ad and manages to make a hash of the whole thing. Whoever wrote this didn’t pay much attention to McCain’s ad and seems completely oblivious to the fact that they effectively proved that either the reporter who wrote the original Raines article was wrong. ...

WaPo To McCain - You Effed Up... You Trusted Us
JustOneMinute — The Fact Checkers at Animal Post couldn't be funnier - they give McCain two Pinnochios for lying in an ad that relied on Washington Post reporting: So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that the three items (including an editorial) all rely on the same single conversation, between Raines and a Washington Post business reporter, Anita Huslin, who ...

They’re Your Pals, McCain
Daily Pundit — Obama’s Fannie Mae ‘Connection’ - Fact Checker So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that the three items (including an editorial) all rely on the same single conversation, between Raines and a Washington Post business reporter, Anita Huslin, who wrote a profile of the discredited Fannie Mae boss that appeared ...

Remainders: Derivative blame game
Jonathan Martin's Blog — Rush goes to the op-ed page. Lowry points fingers at everyone. The Washington Post fact-checker says don't listen to the Washington Post on Raines. Pawlenty doesn't show at McCain's return to Minnesota. Financial industry lobbyists bore in on the candidates. Rothenberg: Colorado, Colorado, Colorado. Hagel and other U.S. officials undermine Amir Taheri's claim about Obama and Iraq. USA Today focuses on the campaign's economic advisors, which means a lot of talking to Douglas ...

Let's Make a Deal
Weekly Standard Blog — At the McCain Report, McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb says the campaign is willing to make an interesting deal with the Washington Post: The Washington Post's Michael Dobbs fact checks the ad this campaign released yesterday titled "Advice": So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. Pretty flimsy? As Dobbs goes on to say, that "pretty ...

Brazen Bias
The Corner on National Review Online — ... the hilarious Fact Checker column by the Washington Post s Michael Dobbs, which accuses the McCain campaign of clearly exaggerating wildly in accurately stating in a video news release: Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The [Washington] Post says it s Franklin Raines, for advice on mortgage and housing policy . Accurately quoting the Post , according to Dobbs, is pretty flimsy [evidence], but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. Today, the Post brazenly runs Dobb s column under the title Linking Obama to Ex-Fannie Mae Chief Is a ...

Washington Post Elbows Its Way Past Time Into The Lead In The Race For The Title of “Least Journalistic Integrity”
Patterico's Pontifications — [Posted by WLS] Washington Post “Fact-Checker” Michael Dobbs takes on his own newspaper’s account of Barack Obama’s connection to Franklin Raines as portrayed by the McCain’s new ad. Dobbs’s verdict?  He says the Post’s article, editorial, and one other reference to the Obama-Raines connection were all based on one reporter’s interview with Raines – and yet while the characterization of the paper was never challenged by Obama or Raines, the verdict is that the McCain campaign is: ...

Surely this can be turned into an ad.
RedState: Conservative News and Community — ... Anyway, the comment is in reaction to The Washington Post's Michael Dobb's exceptionally eye-roll-worthy critique on McCain's Advice ad: ...

McCain Spokesman Refuses To Say Gramm Won’t Be Treasury Secretary
Crooks and Liars — ... ), as if this means he wouldn’t be part of the McCain Cabinet.  He even sneaks in a completely superfluous reference to Franklin Raines, a person the McCain campaign has repeatedly linked to Obama, even though major media outlets have said that McCain is exaggerating wildly the connection between them and Raines has denied any kind of advisory role. Sadly, time doesn’t allow Shuster to call out Bounds for his typically GOP false equivalencies. ...

McCain’s 5 Stages of Grief over the Economy
Crooks and Liars — ... That same day, McCain tried to fight back, but his heart wasn’t in it. In a foreboding ad fraught with racial overtones, McCain tried to link Obama with former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. While the Washington Post quickly debunked the spot by noting that Raines is not an adviser to the Obama campaign, ...

The Guinness World Record for Hypocrisy
The Anonymous Liberal — For the last week or so, the McCain campaign has been aggressively trying to tie Barack Obama to the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to suggest that Obama has somehow been improperly influenced by them. First, the McCain campaign released an ad linking Barack Obama to former Fannie Mae executive Franklin Raines, a guy Obama had spoken to once in his life and who immediately denied having ever given Obama any advice. ...

Blockbuster: McCain campaign manager took Freddie money up until last month
Crooks and Liars — ... What’s even worse is that for the past two weeks, the McCain campaign has been trying to tie Obama to disgraced former Freddie Mac CEO Franklin Raines, arguing that their “relationship” (a single contact from an Obama campaign official that both parties deny amounted to anything) somehow taints Obama. Nevermind the fact that McCain’s most senior campaign official was on Freddie’s payroll as late as last month. The hypocrisy couldn’t be more glaring. ...

It’s Always The Media’s Fault
Comments from Left Field — ... What’s even worse is that for the past two weeks, the McCain campaign has been trying to tie Obama to disgraced former Freddie Mac CEO Franklin Raines, arguing that their “relationship” (a single contact from an Obama campaign official that both parties deny amounted to anything) somehow taints Obama. Nevermind the fact that McCain’s most senior campaign official was on Freddie’s payroll as late as last month. The hypocrisy couldn’t be more glaring. ...

Jesse Lee: 40 Days Out: From the Fundamentals are Strong to a Great Depression in Less Than Two Weeks
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... September 18: McCain launches false attack ad claiming Fannie Mae CEO is advising Obama. [Washington Post Fact Checker blog, 9/19/08] ...

Jumping in Front of the Parade and Killing It
Hoffmania! — ... , had worked at those companies lately or are currently associated with the Obama campaign. (Raines never worked for the campaign at all.) ...