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In exchange for a check of up to $32,400, Hollywood Democrats will be able to hear President Obama speak later today at the Los Angeles home of Shonda Rhimes, the producer of the ABC show “Scandal.”

For Republicans, that constitutes an actual scandal. How dare he raise money instead of projecting American strength to Vladimir Putin?

“The last thing Americans want, with all that is going on in the world, is a president whose priority seems to be political fundraising,” said Kirsten Kukowski, the press secretary for the Republican National Committee.



As usual, though, they’ve latched on to the wrong scandal. The problem isn’t that the president is neglecting his duties, any more than are the many Republicans who spend every night courting big givers over cabernet and steak. It’s that the president has become an avid member of the money-at-all-costs club, abandoning a position he once held that unlimited money is poisoning the political system.

Last night Mr. Obama attended an event in Seattle for the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC for Senate Democrats that is allowed to raise unlimited contributions. The dinner, at the home of the former chief executive of Costco, was listed on the president’s schedule as a “Senate Majority PAC roundtable,” but that’s just part of the silly farce that the White House employs when pretending that Mr. Obama isn’t really raising money.

When he appeared last week at a similar event for the House Majority PAC, at a private home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the group insisted that the event wasn’t a fundraiser because there were no tickets or cost of admission.

“The president is appearing at the event only as a featured speaker and special guest, and is not asking for funds or donations,” a PAC official said in a statement to the White House press pool.

But the PACs do ask the guests for money after the president leaves. Everyone understands how it works: You get to mingle with the president, and shake his hand, and then a bit later you bring out your checkbook and write some very big numbers. The Seattle dinner cost $25,000 a person, but no one was prevented from giving ten times as much.

Mr. Obama promised in early 2012 that he would not attend super PAC events, having earlier denounced the cascade of big money loosed by Citizens United and related court decisions. But later that year, he was persuaded that his presence was necessary to keep Democrats competitive with the far greater reserves of money on the Republican side. Now it’s becoming routine.

While on the West Coast, Mr. Obama will also raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the fundraiser at Ms. Rhimes’s house will benefit the Democratic National Committee. (The latter group needs more money this year because the president recently signed an unfortunate bill ending public financing for the two conventions.) A $10,000 check will get you into Ms. Rhimes’s house and a photo with the president, according to an early version of the invitation obtained by the Sunlight Foundation; $20,000 gets all of the above plus dinner; and $32,400 gets name recognition on the final invitation.

Clearly, it’s now too much to expect Mr. Obama or any other Democrat to unilaterally end the abuse of big money in American politics. But there are several good bills pending in Congress that would reduce the influence of money on both parties. If Mr. Obama forcefully advocated their passage every time he raised money, he might have to do less of it.