Homer Hewitt

How nice to have a potential president who moves swiftly to correct a possible problem. Obama also was willing to admit a mistake in dealing with a shady character in a real estate transaction.

Homer www.altara.blogspot.com

I don't always agree with Todd Gitlin, but in this case he nailed the issue.  This Obama story was total bullshit.  My favorite bit is this:

Even so, the stock purchases raise questions about how he could unwittingly come to invest in two relatively obscure companies, whose backers happen to include generous contributors to his political committees.

Ah, the old "raise questions" gambit.  Nonsense.  The only questions it raises is the quality of financial advice Obama was getting.

I do disagree on one issue though.  I don't believe this is about the Times trying to be even-handed.  It's about what sells newspapers.  Scandals about people (e.g. sex and money), even phony scandals like Whitewater, get people interested and sell newspapers.  That's why this Obama story is on page 1.  Scandals about policy and process (e.g. just about every thing the Bush Administration has done) are bo-o-o-ring, complicated and don't keep people glued to their TVs or newspapers. 

I think this explains a lot about the press in recent years.

Why anyone would expect Sen. Obama to be more "honest" than the rest of the politicians is beyond me. They all get tips and advice from their rich buddies, that's how it works. The only politician who did not invest in stocks, and never invested in the stock market was Al Gore.

Looks like jfrey is randomly assigning 1s to comments in this thread.

Periodically I force myself to watch Tucker Carlson and Chris Matthews, and with the Libby verdict, I figured it should be one of those days. But while driving in a little snowstorm just for added fun, I listened to a certifiable lunatic and liar, Mark Levine, and I just couldn't turn it off. To quote Dr. John, "What a Night!"

Progressives have to take back the Democratic party and then take back our way of life from the Republicans and the Republicans Lite, i.e., the DLC.

Bushco delenda est

So don't let the one he/she gave me stand.

Tom

I won't. It wasn't there when I last posted or I would have changed it at once.

Thank ya. Thank ya . Thank ya very much!

Tom

I don't know, Todd. I certainly agree that this doesn't deserve front-page play. And it probably will wind up being nothing. But you leave out the 2d graf -- the one that says that Obama pushed legislation to spend more funds on avian flu right after investing in a biotech company developing a drug to treat it. And the investments were not in a blind trust, although Obama says he didn't know about them. While I'm inclined to believe him, if these two facts were reported about a Republican, don't you think we'd be at least a little skeptical and think the story deserves some further exploration?

According to CNBC, which picked up this story,Obama's response is reasonable. He lost money on these investments and none of the companies he was invested in benefitted from the legislation he promoted. What is it with the Times and Democratics losing investments?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Uprating

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. Bertrand Russell

You're continued reference to the Ellison endorsing Obama post as an attack against Obama is old, stale and getting embarassing. You have to go out of your way to construe it as an attack on Obama and it diminishes your other, more valid points. Not even 2Pac would think that TPM was against him!

Also, comparing obama's treatment to Clinton's is foolish. Eventually, he may receive the same level of hate, but hasn't come close yet.

I just read the Times story for myself. All I can say is, if you want to know what the story says, you should read the story because this post really mischaracterizes it, in my opinion. An example:

"So let's see if we've got this straight. First graf: "Barack Obama bought...." Fourth graf: "the senator did not know that he had invested...."

That's not at all what the article says. What it says is that a spokesperson for Mr. Obama said that the senator did not know that he had invested. Not a minor point.

never mind

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. Bertrand Russell

Your continuing to attack me is getting old, stale and sounds downright ignorant.

People who are intelligent  and have credible commentary attack the message not the messenger.

As Elvis would say "Thank ya very much."

Tom

What makes this story worthy of the front page to me as a New Yorker (and the Times is after all a New York paper) is the involvement of Jared Abbruzzese. He's a major figure in a federal grand jury investigation of the State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Abbruzzese has contributed to his campaigns, given him free airplane rides, and been a customer of Bruno's private consulting firm. Bruno was discovered to have earmarked $500,000 in grant money which almost always goes to non-profits, to a for-profit company called Evident Technology, of which Abbruzzese was a founder and investor.

Whatsmore, Abbruzzese was a director and investor in Empire Racing, one of three groups vying for the New York thoroughbred racing franchise, and the lucrative slots machines that accompany it. As is customary in Albany, Bruno will be one of the "three men in a room" that will ultimately decide on that. (Abbruzzese has since been bought out of Empire).

So to see his name connected with Obama is quite startling to me, and, his spokesperson's explanation notwithstanding (though we have no reason to doubt it, do we?), rather disturbing. I've written more on Abbruzzese on my horse racing blog Left at the Gate.

Left at the Gate: http://leftatthegate.blogspot.com

the VRWC is alive and well.

That's not Gitlin's point at all -- T Gitlin: So the NYT is off and running to demonstrate that it's even-handed.

There is no conspiracy in journalism. Just a lot of laziness and overcompensation. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Just a lot of laziness and overcompensation.

LOL!  I'm with you on the laziness.  But overcompensation?  Your average newspaper reporter, even at the New York Times, makes bupkes.  Outside of a few superstars, most of these guys don't even crack six figures.

The pillorying of BHO will make the attacks on HRC look like a sand box fight.

I wasn't sure I would agree with this statement.  After all, Hillary Clinton is hated with a passion that is hard to understand.  But then I came across this from Debbie Schlussel, a popular wingnut blogger:

Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father.

But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim.

And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

Then, there are the other items in his background. As best-selling author Scott Turow wrote in Salon, Obama went to a Muslim school for two years in Indonesia. His mother, Anna, married an Indonesian man (likely another Muslim, as Indonesia is Muslim-dominated and has the largest Islamic population in the world).

And Obama has a "born-again" affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya, and his Kenyan sister. (Although Kenya is largely Christian, it has a fast-growing Muslim population that has engaged in a good deal of religious violence and riots against Christians. And Kenyan courts will apply Sharia law, when the participants are Muslim.)

 [...]

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

Is that even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)?

NO WAY, JOSE . . . Or, is that, HUSSEIN?

I think we haven't seen the last of this sort of thing.  If Obama wins the nomination, you'll see this ugliness just below the surface of the race.  Except when it's out in the open.

Second page about halfway down:

"And while the company has received millions of dollars in federal money to develop drugs for treating ebola and other serious diseases, it still has not received any federal money for its avian flu research."

So he didn't know he'd bought either stock, lost money on the satellite stock and made $2000 on this one even though it didn't get a dime from the government for the program he was advocating. What assholes.

Well, as I said in my post, I agree this is not front-page news. If that's your entire point, then I have no beef with you. I guess I read you to be arguing that there was no story here at all, and that's what I would disagree with you on. If I misread you, I apologize.

But, I have to say I get a chuckle out of "but Obama says he didn't invest." Actually, of course, it was his spokesman, not Obama, who refused to comment on it. But that aside, I find the implicit trust you seem to have that a politician would of course, never falsely exculpate himself, to be rather amusing. Your faith in human goodness is touching, really.

Or is it just Obama that gets a free pass?

This has nothing to do with Hillary or Obama or the NYT. The real story is that the corporate media has a different standard for Dems.

It doesn't matter who the Dems nominate. The candidate will be subjected to intense scrunity and swift boating.

And if the candidate goes on to win they will be subjected to the same treatment the Clintons got; endless pseduo scandals.

Why?

Because the MSM fears the GOP. They don't fear Democrats.

Also because the GOP owns a massive Right Wing Noise Machine which they use to go after Dems and push the MSM to covering Dem pseudo scandals.

Unless Dems build their own Noise Machine and fight back they will continue to be at a disadvantage.

That Casey quote's a beaut. What's the source?

Tom

Glenn in NYC:

You have no beef with me. Apology accepted.

Todd Gitlin

"If he maligned Republicans just like he does Democrats, he'd get some serious death threats."

His corporate overlords at MSNBC would fire him immediately. He knows this.

I think we haven't seen the last of this sort of thing.  If Obama wins the nomination, you'll see this ugliness just below the surface of the race.  Except when it's out in the open.

Yes. And I am waiting for the 'balanced media' to tell us how many slaves HRC's great,great, great maternal relatives owned, as well now that they have told us about BHO's.

Unless Dems build their own Noise Machine and fight back they will continue to be at a disadvantage.

Or they could have their primary debate on Fox News. 

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Nancy Irving

Bending over backward? No, I think you have to bend *forward* for what he's doing, LOL.

Do you have a portion of your porfolio that is high risk? I mean investment funds where you are willing to take a possible loss for a possible but risky big gain? If so, do you know everything about the the owners and other investors in these stocks.
Regarding the stocks, wasn't the conclusion nothing untoward happened? The NYT article said : There is no evidence that any of his actions ended up benefiting either company during the roughly eight months that he owned the stocks.
Nedra Pickler (dead tree Time
magazine) reports that Obama received a stockholder's letter in the mail and realized he didn't have truly blind trust. He sold the offending stocks in 11/2005 and corrected the trust's status (This was in the first few months of setting up the trust).
One stock made money, the other lost money.
Do you have facts to support illegal/unethical actions taken by Obama?

I agree. The way Todd Gitlin characterizes it, Obama is clearly innocent of the charge: "the senator did not know that he had invested...."

But the fact is, all we had at that point was the word of one of Obama's spokespeople. Which, of course, MUST be the truth because Obama's a Democrat, right?

Sloppy, biased reporting is sloppy, biased reporting no matter who's doing it. We need to hold ourselves to a higher standard than they do. All I'm saying.

There may be a story here. Unpaid parking tickets at Harvard Law, however, is no story.

I gather Mr. Gitlin's example

. . .refers to wider implications.  Someone has already mentioned this previously in this thread, but it deserves updating.  Half awake, I picked up a story on the local public radio outlet this morning about Barack Obama collecting more than a Law Degree while he was at Harvard...17 parking tickets, which he did not pay until January of this year.  I suspect that 17 is below average, and that not one in a thousand Harvard students bother to pay tickets once they've graduated and returned to Kalamazoo or Cucamonga.  BUT:  as of 3:50 p.m. e.s.t. something like 128 news outlets have picked this up. 

Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, mostly for parking in a bus stop, parking without a resident permit and failing to pay the meter, records from the Cambridge Traffic, Parking and Transportation office show.

He incurred $140 in fines and $260 in late fees in Cambridge in all, but he paid $25 for two of the tickets in February 1990.

Wow.  4.25 parking tickets per year!  Convene the international court of justice. 

The fact that he paid these a couple of months ago would seem to indicate this is "olds" not "news".

aMike

But, I have to say I get a chuckle out of "but Obama says he didn't invest." Actually, of course, it was his spokesman, not Obama, who refused to comment on it.

Obama responds in this article:

“I know there may be some presidential questions,” Obama said, perhaps understating the blogosphere and Beltway brushfire set off by a New York Times story on his stock holdings, “and I’d be happy to stick around [to answer them].” But first, Obama asked for time to discuss his new bill blocking planned fee hikes for citizenship applications filed by legal immigrants.

The press obliged him, and Obama responded to the Times’s questions about his 2005 investments in companies that some of his political donors also favored. Obama said he was in the process of setting up a trust to make targeted stock purchases, tapping a broker at UBS who came recommended by George Hayworth, one of the freshman’s financial supporters.

The broker chose to spend some of Obama’s book-advance income on two so-called “small cap” stocks, AVI BioPharma and SkyTerra Communications, according to the senator. While hardly household names, the two companies were considered potential growth stocks thanks to the federal spending boom on homeland security.
“At no point did I know which stocks were held,” Obama said. “At no point did I direct how those stocks were invested.”

The senator, whose avoidance of critical media coverage has fascinated 2008 prognosticators and frustrated allies of his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), did direct the stocks to be sold in the fall of 2005. Obama said he made the move to avoid the appearance of a potential conflict of interest after he received a shareholder communication from one of the companies, though he could not recall details.

Obama responds.

http://tinyurl.com/yv9lqx

What is happening to Obama is also called slimming in this article.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/48286/

Quote:

As presidential aspirants announce their candidacies in an already mind-numbing procession, the "Sliming Bowl" is well under way. No candidate has been smeared more than Barack Obama, and no smearer more relentless than Fox News, as the short video (right) by Brave New Films demonstrates.

"Sliming" is the rabid, rapid, media barrage of persistently repeated lies and innuendo mastered by the right-wing media machine, which aims to tar candidates with negative associations before their campaigns get rolling. Or alternatively, to bruise them enough so that they will suffer under the burden of damaged goods as they try to gain footing.

Obama has been hammered for a whole grab-bag of alleged misdeeds, most which he had nothing to do with -- such as his name, his early schooling, and his parentage -- while other "nuggets of expose," like the fact that he smokes cigarettes, is treated like a deep, dark media secret.

Fox News, with its Muslim bashing, leads the way in the smear campaign against Obama. A catalogue of Fox's propaganda aimed at Obama has been collected by Greenwald, whose highly popular film Outfoxed got wide distribution through Blockbuster, Netflix, and thousands of house parties across the country two years ago.

Paul Waldman, of Media Matters and the Gadfly, charts the first of what are already many false stories spread about Barack Obama --