Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and the Mainstream Media
Lies, Damn Lies, AP "Analysis" and CNN "Fact Checks"
The AP, which has put in yeoman's work as a mouthpiece of the Obama campaign, will be billing the campaign time-and-half for DOUGLASS K. DANIEL's "Analysis: Palin's words carry racial tinge".
Daniel not only attacked Republican Vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, for bringing up the connection between Barack Obama and domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers--in effect, the AP hack calls Palin a liar.
Then he called, in effect, a racist.
Her reference to Obama's relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were "pals" or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.
After the AP and CNN's (Non-Performance) on the John Edwards Scandal, why would they expect their readers/viewers to trust them?
Daniel might amended his sentence to "no evidence that the AP could uncover".
The AP, readers will remember, is that shining star of investigative journalism that imposed a blackout on John Edwards' scandal news for ten months--in the midst of Edwards running for president. After Edwards confessed, the AP scrambled--not to check out leads or follow the Edwards hush money trail--but to try and excuse its lack of investigation, reporting, ethics, standards and basic human curiosity.
Shorthand for the AP's performance in the John Edwards affair/scandal/cover-up:
Guess who the AP's chief apologist in explaining why the "news" organization didn't report any John Edwards' news--until he gave them his blessing and confessed?
Why, it was Douglass K. Daniel!
ALSO at DBKP:  Click on banner to access 100 DBKP stories and videos on the John Edwards scandal. |
First, Edwards confessed. Then Daniel confessed that "Reporters found Edwards' affair tough to prove.
Well, AP reporters found it tough to prove.
Just like Douglass K. Daniel finds that there is "no evidence" that Obama and Ayers were "palling around".
As in the John Edwards affair, it's too tough for the AP to assign a reporter to the Obama-Ayers story: that might result in an AP reporter giving his bosses some unpleasant news.
Better to let others do the heavy lifting, then send in Douglass K. Daniel to apologize later for the AP not doing its job.
Patterico is sick of Any Argument Against Barack Obama Is By Definition Racist:
I’m sick of the race card being played whenever someone criticizes Barack Obama. Making the Ayers connection is hardly a racist ploy, but that’s what we’re being told by the AP today. There is literally no argument you can make against this man that will not be countered by cries of racism.
IF YOU CRITICIZE BARACK OBAMA OVER BILL AYERS, it's because you're a racist! sayeth Glenn Reynolds.
Well, of course. If you criticize Barack Obama over anything, it's because you're a racist. No doubt that'll hold true if he's elected President, too, which will call for strict anti-racism laws to keep such things under control . . . .
Hindrocket, Powerline wonders if the Douglass smear piece isn't "The Most Bizarre Journalistic Malpractice Yet?"
When the McCain campaign ran an ad that had a white woman in it, it was denounced as racist. When it ran an ad that had an African-American man (Franklin Raines) in it, it was denounced as racist. Now the McCain campaign links Obama to a white man, the former terrorist, and still anti-American, Bill Ayers. That's racist too. I think we've exhausted just about all the possibilities. The only non-racist thing McCain can do, apparently, is concede the election.
Sarah Palin herself says, "“The Associated Press is wrong. The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about, and I think it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy’s living room.”
Squelching news disadvantageous to Barack Obama, a headlong rush to Sarah Palin, rigged polls, exit polls, declaring Biden and Obama the "winners" of debates, incestuous interviews of other MSM Obama shills: is not all of this not more proof that the MSM is Actively Engaged in Voter Suppression?
Truthteller at NoQuarter slices and dices Daniel, line-by-byline: [Douglass K. Daniel of the AP is NOT a Journalist]
WASHINGTON (AP) - By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is “palling around with terrorists” and doesn’t see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign.
And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.
[Sarah Palin’s discussion of Obama’s deep and controversial ties to Bill Ayers is not “unsubstantiated,” and it is certainly not an “attack.” Indeed, she offers a factual analysis of the available data, data Steve Diamond and others have made available to readers of No Quarter. And nothing about Sarah Palin’s words contain a “racially tinged subtext,” unless, of course, you are a compromised journalist who must project racism on everything you encounter in order to repress the racist impulses you compulsively disavow in your vain attempt to conceal your racism. I challenge Douglass K. Daniel to cite one sentence Sarah Palin utters that mentions or even alludes to race. Too bad he will fail, as she does not mention Obama’s race at all.]
of their racist friends at a recent rally
CNN jumps in and tries to "fact check" Palin's remarks.
Verdict: False. There is no indication that Ayers and Obama are now "palling around," or that they have had an ongoing relationship in the past three years. Also, there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity or that other Obama associates are.
"I wish someone would ask [Obama] just once: "Then tell me, would it be ok for a child who was eight years old on 9/11--to then have a friendship with Osama bin Laden later in life as an adult"?
--comment at Free Republic on Obama's friendship with Bill Ayers
[From DBKP's Obama, Domestic Terrorist Bill Ayers: The 'Tangential' Bill Ayers]
Readers will also remember how CNN leaped to "fact check" John Edwards: CNN didn't report a word until Edwards gave them permission by confessing.
NewsBusters unloaded a double-barrel fact-check on CNN's "fact check" [McCain Camp Finally Expose Obama Ayers Connection, Media Quick to the Rescue and CNN Ignores Bernardine Dohrn's Terrorist Past While Defending Obama ].
For good measure, NewsBusters' Todd Warner Huston thinks Douglass K. Daniel's view of Sarah Palin is "idiotic".
Talk about an idiotic assertion, but the Associated Press just claimed that Governor Sarah Palin is a racist for saying that Obama used to "pal around with terrorists." According to the AP's Douglass K. Daniel, Palin is a racist because the word "terrorist" is construed now-a-days to mean a "dark-skinned radical Muslim" so that makes her a "racist" in his blinkered view.
What are connections between Obama and Ayers? Let us count the ways: * Obama and Ayers worked closely on the Chicago Anneberg Challenge When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. * In November of 1997, William Ayres and Barack Obama participated in a Community Service Center’s monthly discussion series on issues affecting the city of Chicago. The University of Chicago News said, "Ayers will be joined by Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the University of Chicago Law School, who is working to block proposed legislation that would throw more juvenile offenders into the adult system . ." * Obama kicked off his political career by announcing at Ayers home. Stanley Kurtz again: "when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership." * Hillary Clinton brought up that the Obama-Ayers relationship on the Woods Fund. Clinton is correct that both men served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Ayers joined the board in 1999 and is still on it. Obama left it in December 2002 after nine years. * Obama and Dohrn worked for elite law firm Sidley and Austin and The Obama-Ayers Top Ten: Highlights of the 20 year Obama-Ayers Connection * Obama publicly endorsed Ayers book Obama was perfectly aware of Ayers’ radical views, since he read and publically endorsed, without qualification, Ayers’ book on juvenile crime. That book is quite radical, expressing doubts about whether we ought to have a prison system at all, comparing America to South Africa’s apartheid system, and contemptuously dismissing the idea of the United States as a kind or just country. This is not all: this is only what has been uncovered, despite the best efforts of the Obama campaign and the Mainstream Media to keep the whole issue under control. Fact check this--DBKP has. |
The best of the rest responses:
* Little Green Footballs: Associated Press Hits Bottom, Digs
* SARAH PALIN RACIST!... AP Says VP Candidate's Attacks on Obama Were Mean & Racist
* Palin-bashing Associated Press cries “RAAAACISM!”.
Malkin notes that DKD was "Putting the "ass" in 'Associated Press"".
Finally, Jonah Goldberg at NRO, calls the AP "Outrageously Asinine":
"The whole argument ultimately depends on the assumption that Americans are too stupid and racist to make any meaningful distinctions about anything." (See "We the Sheeple" image above.)
Contrast and compare the AP and CNN's responses to Sarah Palin calling out Barack Obama on his unpleasant connections to Bill Ayers with their ten-month hiatus on calling out John Edwards.
CNN, AP, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the rest of the MSM were guilty of Missing in Action on the John Edwards story.
On the Barack Obama-Bill Ayers story, they're guilty of something that goes beyond the MSM's normal bias.
The McCain campaign's Tucker Bounds hits the bulls-eye:
"The last four weeks of this election will be about whether the American people are willing to turn our economy and national security over to Barack Obama, a man with little record, questionable judgment, and ties to radical figures like unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers. Americans need to ask themselves if they've ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist, or had a convicted felon help them buy their house -- because those aren't smears, those are true facts about Barack Obama." ---Tucker Bounds, spokesman McCain-Palin 2008
As quickly as those interested in the curious connections between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers--led by Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond--uncover information, the Mainstream Media just as quickly covers it up.
Douglas K. Daniel's attack, the New York Times' whitewash and CNN's "Fact Check" of Sarah Palin are only the first of many in this war of Big Media disinformation.
by Mondo Frazier
images:
* law.du
* onion
* aol
* lh5
* dbkp file
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