Senator McCain won a round against Democrats yesterday when the Federal Election Commission rejected their contention that he violated campaign finance laws during the Republican primary. The FEC’s draft opinion affirms Mr. McCain’s right to bypass the public financing system and the strict spending limits that come with it. That was a rejection of the Democratic National Committee’s complaint asserting that Mr. McCain’s campaign had wrongly received loans based on his participation in public financing before later withdrawing from that system. The DNC pointed to a section of campaign finance law that bars candidates from withdrawing from the public system if the candidate has “pledged public funds as security for private financing.” Lawyers for the FEC concluded that Mr. McCain did not pledge to use public financing as collateral for the loans and did not violate the law. The FEC is scheduled to vote on the matter next week.

Associated Press

OBAMA REBUTS CONSERVATIVE BOOK

Senator Obama hit back yesterday with a 40-page rebuttal to the best-selling book “The Obama Nation,” arguing the author is a fringe bigot peddling rehashed lies. Jerome Corsi’s anti-Obama book, “The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous candidate for president. The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false speculation against Mr. Obama — that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical black church, and secretly has a “black rage” hidden beneath the surface. The Obama campaign picked apart the book’s claims in a rebuttal titled “Unfit for Publication,” to be posted on the campaign’s rumor-fighting Web site, FightTheSmears.com. The title is a play on the book Mr. Corsi co-authored against Senator Kerry’s military service called “Unfit for Command.”

Associated Press

OPRAH TO SHUN SPOTLIGHT IN DENVER

Oprah Winfrey has decided to skip the spotlight at Senator Obama’s acceptance speech on the Denver football field during the Democratic National Convention on August 28. Ms. Winfrey is reportedly afraid she would draw away attention from his nomination event, which officially starts the fall’s general election campaign against Senator McCain. Ms. Winfrey will be in attendance, her friend and co-worker Gayle King told “Entertainment Tonight.” But she intends to blend in with the expected crowd of some 70,000. “Oprah has not been asked to introduce him, is not expecting to be asked to introduce him and I would doubt that she would want to introduce him,” Ms. King said.

Staff Reporter of the Sun