'Democrat-Leaning Outside Group' Funded by John Podesta and George Soros Air McCain Attack Ads

A textbook case of absurd liberal media bias from the Associated Press.

Breathtakingly dishonest.

A Democratic-leaning group financed by a major labor union and wealthy liberal activists is running ads against Sen. John McCain in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the beginning of a media campaign against the GOP nominee-in-waiting.

What's the deal with Democratic-leaning?

Are we not allowed to call it a Democrat group, sans the leaning? Amazing how the L word slipped through.

The ad is the work of the Campaign to Defend America, a nonprofit organization that is among anti-war and left-of-center groups that have pledged a multimillion-dollar effort to target McCain and congressional Republicans on the consequences of the Iraq war on the U.S. economy.

Here's part of their cheesy ad.

"A trillion dollars in Iraq over the next ten years, McSame as Bush," an announcer in the ad says. "A millionaire who's for tax cuts for millionaires. McSame as Bush. Oil companies? They get tax breaks while we pay at the pump. McSame as Bush. Absolutely no plan for universal health care. McSame as Bush. Tell John McCain we need a new direction. Not the McSame old thing."

Really McLame.

According to FEC reports and filings with the Internal Revenue Service, the Campaign to Defend America has received at least $1.4 million from the Fund for America, a nonprofit group set up last year by John Podesta, a former chief of staff for President Clinton; Anna Burger, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union; and Rob McKay, a California philanthropist. The Campaign to Defend America is headed by Tom Matzzie, the former Washington director of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org.

Among Fund for America donors are multimillionaire financier George Soros, who gave it $2.5 million last year and was a major contributor to an effort to defeat Bush in 2004. Burger's union also contributed $2.5 million last year, according to Fund for America's IRS records.

"These groups spent tens of millions of dollars in 2004 against President Bush and he won re-election," McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said. "It didn't work then and it won't work now."

Seems this crew is an offshoot of this amalgam of leftist freakazoids, also funded by Soros, that we noted less than two weeks ago.