OBAMARAMA

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.

Fortunately, he’s not running for investor-in-chief.

UPDATE: Media Matters points us toward a breathless MSNBC report on “Sen. Obama’s first scandal.” Watch the video and see if you can identify exactly where the scandal is. Even the guest suggests there’s no “there” there.

UPDATE 2: When asked about the subject, Sen. McCain called Sen. Obama “a very honest and fine person.”