After denying any connection between the use of his PAC money and his campaign, Obama and his campaign have a lot of explaining to do.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign helped recommend several of the donations his political action committee made in recent months to politicians in key primary states as the campaign was working to secure endorsements, campaign officials said yesterday.

The acknowledgment alters the campaign's original account of how donations were directed and raised questions among some legal experts about whether the presidential committee was using Obama's leadership PAC to benefit his campaign. The Obama campaign said it is confident it complied with the law.

Obama's Hopefund Inc. distributed more than $180,000 in donations to political groups and candidates in the early presidential voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and more than $150,000 to federal candidates in other states with primary dates through mid-February. The donations accounted for nearly three-quarters of the money the PAC has given out since this summer.

An Obama campaign spokesman last week said that "there is no connection" between the PAC donations and the presidential campaign.

But Bob Bauer, the private counsel for both Obama's campaign and Hopefund, said yesterday that campaign workers were involved over the summer in identifying and recommending possible recipients when Hopefund was deciding how to spend its remaining money. In particular, Bauer said, senior campaign strategist Steve Hildebrand was consulted "multiple times" on potential donations.

The guy who made the recommendations is now a deputy campaign chairman, moving seamlessly from one job to the other. Certainly has an appearance of impropriety, don't you think? I thought you liberals kept saying that Obama was different from all the rest.

And before you liberals protest raising the question, consider this -- what would you say if there had been such cross-pollination between Ton DeLay's PAC and reelection campaign? Don't bother answering -- it will only show your hypocrisy.

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