Via JWF, follow the logic here. The SEC suit against Goldman is, allegedly, completely independent of the White House. No politics involved, no arm-twisting by The One, just a simple case of the SEC doing what it does as an autonomous agency of the government. Fair enough.

But in that case, what’s with the ad?

President Obama is bringing his war on Wall Street to the enemy’s turf.

He’ll make his pitch for financial reform in the heart of lower Manhattan Thursday – even as his team make hay of the Goldman Sachs fiasco with a tech savvy appeal to Democratic donors.

Internet surfers who entered “Goldman Sachs SEC” into Google were directed to the president’s campaign Web site via a sponsored link titled “Help Change Wall Street.”

The White House’s political arm paid for the keywords — but would not say how much.

See for yourself. If the White House bears no responsibility for the suit and therefore deserves neither credit nor blame for it being filed, what’s The One doing using it to push a “Help Change Wall Street” message on surfers that links directly to his online operation? In fact, if you click the ad link and provide an e-mail address and zip code in the fields on his site’s home page, guess what pops up?

In other words, if you’re excited about the lawsuit against Goldman, send money to a guy who ostensibly has nothing to do with it. The defense here, I take it, will be that The One’s website says nothing about the suit itself and is merely using the search term to attract people who are interested in financial reform more broadly. That’s cute, but it’s a lie: The impression given, clearly, by connecting the two is that Obama’s responsible for the proceedings against Goldman and that cutting him a check will encourage him to sue lots more fatcats. Frankly, if he’s willing to be that shady, I don’t know why he’d limit himself to the Goldman case. Surely there are all sorts of pending DOJ prosecutions with which he has nothing to do that he could milk for some fast cash, no?

Via the Right Scoop, here’s Rush talking about this earlier today.