Here’s a sampling of the some of the work being done to defend Barack Obama from the stock deal non-story…

From Media Matters…

Wash. Post’s Cillizza falsely claimed Obama "is battling allegations of ethical misjudgment"

In a March 7 entry to his washingtonpost.com weblog, The Fix, Washington Post staff writer Chris Cillizza wrote: "For the second time since signaling his plans to run for president, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is battling allegations of ethical misjudgment." Cillizza was referring to a March 7 New York Times article highlighting the 2005 purchase, on Obama’s behalf by his broker (and, Obama said, without his knowledge), of "more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors," and a November 1, 2006, Chicago Tribune article highlighting a 2005 land deal between Obama and Chicago fundraiser Antoin Rezko, a supporter of Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign. However, contrary to Cillizza’s claim, the Times article did not contain an "allegation[] of ethical misjudgment" and the Post itself reported, in an article to which Cillizza linked, that there "have been no allegations that Obama … committed any ethics violations" in the land deal.

MSNBC, ABC’s The Note hyped NY Times Obama "scandal," despite no evidence of ethical impropriety

Citing a March 7 New York Times article reporting that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors," MSNBC News Live anchor Contessa Brewer suggested that the story represented Obama’s "first real scandal." Neither Brewer nor her guest, Newsweek senior White House correspondent Richard Wolffe, noted that the Times reported that "[t]here is no evidence that any of [Obama’s] actions ended up benefiting either company during the roughly eight months that he owned the stocks," though Wolffe did question whether the story qualified as a "scandal."

The March 7 edition of ABC News’ political newsletter, The Note, led with the Times‘ Obama story, calling it a "front page investigative must-read." According to The Note, one of the "[b]ad sign[s] for Team Obama" is that even though Obama lost $13,000 in the stock deal, "Whitewater lost money too." Absent from The Note’s discussion of the potential effect of the Times story on Obama was any acknowledgement that that the several multimillion-dollar investigations into the Clinton-era Whitewater real-estate "scandal" found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Clintons.

From ABC News…

McCain: Obama ‘A Very Honest and Fine Person’

ABC News’ Teddy Davis and Matthew Zavala Report: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., offered praise for a potential Democratic rival for the presidency today amid reports questioning Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., investment activity.

"I do know that Sen. Obama is a very honest and fine person from everything I’ve known about him," McCain told ABC News when asked about a story in today’s New York Times examining stock purchases made by the Illinois Democrat’s qualified blind trust.

From the Carpetbagger Report…

Yet another non-scandal to chew on

The New York Times ran an article this morning about Barack Obama and some investments the Times believes are suspicious. Since the piece ran on the front page, and it wasn’t written by John Solomon, I read it expecting to find something relatively damaging.

But after going through it a couple of times, it seems, to borrow a phrase, like a “gotcha” without the gotcha.

From Daily Kos…

Confronting the New York Times Obama hit piece

How to Smear a Democrat – Target: Obama

Obama: NYT article source: financial reporter 1 & only political story

From Obamarama.org…

NYT Plays “Gotcha” Over Obama Investment Non-Story

In the seventh paragraph of its article about investments in two companies that were made on behalf of Sen. Obama in a blind trust he set up, the New York Times notes that “There is no evidence that any of his actions ended up benefiting either company during the roughly eight months that he owned the stocks.”

If you only read the first six paragraphs, however, you would get a distinctly different impression. According to the article, the purchases “raise questions” about how Sen. Obama came to invest in the companies — Skyterra and AVI BioPharma — which work with the federal government and whose stockholders include major donors to Sen. Obama’s campaign.

Sadly, the article does not elaborate on what these “questions” are. Nor does it point out that wealthy political donors also tend to be major stockholders in many companies, making the possibility that a senator will wind up investing in some of the same companies as people who contribute to his campaign practically an inevitability.

Instead, the Times opts to “raise questions,” and then proceeds chart the feeble connections between Sen. Obama’s purchases and his legislative priorities in order to suggest some wrongdoing it has already acknowledged isn’t there. These connections include his push for an avian flu vaccine and his investment in AVI (though, as the article notes in its 24th paragraph, this company “has not received any federal money for its avian flu research”).

Further undercutting the article’s suggestion of impropriety and insider dealing is the disclosure in the article’s 11th paragraph that Sen. Obama lost $15,000 on his investment in Skyterra, bringing his net profit on these “questionable” investments to a scandalous NEGATIVE $13,000. It seems to me the only questions this story raises are about the stock-picking aptitude of the people who manage Sen. Obama’s blind trust.