Incredulous, easy-to-debunk claims of presidential candidates are often subjected to fierce media scrutiny. In the case of Obama, however, the media has been suspiciously negligent.

Supremely confident of his intractable media support, a carefree Obama conceals his contradictions and weak positions with blanket statements, effectively misrepresenting the truth, distorting his record to make it more favorable, or sweeping criticisms under the rug. And a starry-eyed media smiles and nods.

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Nowhere is this more obvious than Obama’s stance on the all-purpose Washington villains known as lobbyists. “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president,” Obama said at a speech in Iowa last November.

Of course, Obama left out a number of caveats. According to his campaign’s de facto standards, taking money from state and municipal lobbyists is acceptable, employing “former” lobbyists on the campaign is okay, as is having lobbyists as unpaid advisers, and taking money from lobbyists wives is acceptable. The Center for Responsive Politics has reported that Obama has taken $85,000 directly from state and municipal lobbyists or the family members of federal lobbyists.

Notable exceptions aside, Obama’s real prestidigitation is still more impressive. When Obama says he hasn’t taken money from lobbyists, what he means to say is that he hasn’t taken money directly from the bank accounts of registered lobbyists. He’s taken lots and lots of money from lobbyists who are out actively raising money from others on his behalf. The practice of using well-connected individuals to raise money from groups of people is known as “bundling.” The fact that he has plenty of lobbyists working as bundlers for his campaign wouldn’t seem to make him any less beholden than if he’d taken their personal checks. If anything, it’s actually less transparent.

New Federal Election Commission regulations would guard against this kind of equivocation in campaigns by requiring that candidates explicitly disclose when they employ lobbyists as bundlers. However, the new regulations have been stalled because the FEC requires that four people serve on the commission for the commission to take any action (including the enactment of the new regulations).Currently, only two people serve, and the Democratic congress refuses to approve any of the Bush administration’s appointees (or at least, that’s the conventional wisdom. One might also note that Obama personally placed a hold on Hans von Spakovsky, the most recent nominee for a position on the FEC. (Von Spakovsky has since withdrawn his name.))

Could a functioning FEC force a number of formal disclosures for the Obama campaign? So far we don’t know, and aren’t likely to know before Election Day given how long the FEC has been held up.