posted June 26, 2008 06:40 PM            

Yet McCain's own flip-flop on public financing in the GOP primary has been largely buried or ignored in media coverage, even though it is far more serious--including potentially legally--than Obama's symbolic "broken pledge."

On two occasions, in November 2007 and December 2007, the McCain campaign received favorable loans from a Bethesda bank, totaling $4 million, by promising to use federal matching funds as collateral. Accepting public funding in the primary would've given the cash strapped McCain campaign an infusion of money but limited how much it could spend until the GOP convention in early September. Instead, after winning the New Hampshire primary, McCain opted against seeking public funding, realizing he could raise enough money on his own to sustain the campaign. It was certainly a politically expedient flip-flop. The question now is: are there legal ramifications?

The DNC has asked the Federal Elections Commission, which has been dormant for months, to investigate McCain's reversal to see whether he's violating campaign finance law. The lawsuit is now before the US District Court in Washington. According to the DNC's statement:

In order to receive matching funds, John McCain signed a binding agreement with the FEC to accept spending limits and to abide by the conditions of receiving those funds. The FEC requires that any request to withdraw from the agreement must be granted by the FEC. FEC Chairman David Mason made this clear in a letter to McCain advising him that the law requires the FEC to approve his request to withdraw from his contract - a move McCain ignored and cost Mason his job.

According to past Commission rulings, the McCain campaign would not be allowed to withdraw from matching funds because it already violated a key condition for being let out of the program - pledging matching funds as collateral for a private loan.

After writing the letter to McCain, Mason was not re-appointed to the FEC by President Bush. Said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer: "The only apparent reason for President Bush to drop Commissioner David Mason at this stage, an FEC candidate he had twice proposed for the Commission, is to prevent him from casting an adverse vote against Senator McCain."

Five new members of the FEC were approved by the Senate yesterday.

Also yesterday, at a member with reporters in Washington, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe brandished a document showing that McCain pledged to seek public funding in the GOP primary when he applied to get on state ballots.

"John McCain signed his name, 'John McCain,'" Plouffe said, according to the Politico's Ben Smith. "He got on the ballot attesting he would be in the primary system." Now Plouffe says, "McCain is spending tens of millions of dollars, we believe, unlawfully."

The McCain campaign continues to attack Obama for opting out of public financing in the general, releasing a web ad on the topic this week. Yet the McCain campaign shouldn't get too cocky, given McCain's own reversals in this area, and his broader abandonment of campaign-finance reform. "They're out there throwing stones in glass houses on this," Plouffe says.

When will the media outlets and reform experts who slammed Obama for his alleged hypocrisy start scrutinizing McCain?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080626/cm_thenation/45332840_1