3/21/2008 MEMO: Obama Campaign: Just Words To: Interested Parties From: The Clinton Campaign Date: March 21, 2008 RE: Obama Campaign: Just Words At this point, it’s no secret that the Obama campaign is in political hot water given the news stories of the last few weeks and is desperate to change the subject. The ground is shifting away from them and their response? First, disenfranchise voters - Prevent new votes in Florida and Michigan. Stop voting in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia and Indiana. Second, peddle photos of President Clinton shaking hands with Reverend Wright less than 48 hours after calling for a high-minded conversation on race. Well, President Clinton took tens of thousands of photos during his eight years as president. Stop the presses. Third, accuse our campaign of having something to do with Senator Obama’s passport file being breached, a reckless charge that has zero merit. Fourth, continue attacks on Senator Clinton’s character in an effort to implement what the Chicago Tribune called a full assault on her ethics. Fifth, stonewall the press: no tax returns, no state records, no answers about the inconsistencies in the Rezko story. So it’s not a pretty sight - it’s all part of a pattern of just words. Senator Obama talks about voter participation while actively disenfranchising millions. He calls for high minded debates while practicing lowdown politics. He promises a different kind of campaign while attacking Hillary’s character. He promises transparency while hiding basic info and stonewalling the press. It’s no wonder that Americans are coming to see that for all of his lofty rhetoric, Senator Obama’s candidacy is really just words. It’s no surprise that Americans are expressing serious doubts about his ability to answer the 3am call. It’s no wonder that top journalists are calling the Obama campaign desperate, saying that it’s amateur hour in Chicago.

So I'm watching CNN(more for background noise than anything else) and I hear Lou Dobbs doing a story on the Florida and Michigan redos. 
One fact missing he didn't quite make clear:
 the DNC rules, agreed to ahead of time by all candidates, state that delegates from Florida and Michigan would not count, because they moved up their primaries.  
 Can you do a story on this without stating why it became an issue in the first place?

To be fair,  Obama is quoted as saying that in Michigan, his name wasn't even on the ballot.  But a majority of the piece focused on Hillary's comments about how undemocratic it would be to disenfranchise voters.  
So many new voters are just starting to pay attention to the election,  especially those voters in Pennsylvania.  If they heard this story, it sounds like Obama is disenfranchising voters.
No self-respecting journalist can do a story on this without making clear that it only became an issue when the Clintons chose to break with the DNC rules.





 

Please, tell me there are tpm readers that see through this.  Put yourself in the position of the state department PR machine.  How do you put out the elevation of someone targeting Obama's passport file?  
Problem:  Someone slipped up and told the public about our politically-motivated security breach on Obama's file.  
Perception:  the public thinks we're trying to bring down the leading presidential candidate, which is true. 
Solution:  Gee, it seems to have happened to each of the candidates running, not just Obama.  The dates?  We can't say specifically. (until we input the breaches ourselves)

Fox news is still at it. Rev. Wright denounced U.N. racism conference and they imply anti-semitism.

Unfortunately for Fox, it was the same one Colin Powell refused to attend. Here's the NYT article:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02EEDB1630F93BA1575BC0A9679C8B63

I'm just trying to present an objective POV with this post.

Just in cased you missed Rachel Maddow pointing this out, here are the lyrics to the hymn sung at the Republican debate in Sept. 2007. This was a public event broadcast to millions of people.

Why should God bless America?

She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should God bless America?
Shes’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

-removed a tyrant and liberated a people.  (half-right)
-operation Iraqi freedom was a remarkable display of military effectiveness (take out the word effectiveness)
-liberated baghdad in less than one month (not)

-our intervention will be studied by historitans for years to come (agree, but not in the way Bush would like)

-world is now better. U.S. is now safer. (not exactly)

-helped Iraqi people claim their nation (replace "Iraqi people with "U.S."
-terrorists that kill americans in the streets of baghdad want to kill americans in the streets here in America (still tying 9/11 to Iraq)
-without the surge, violence that consumed Iraq could have spread, become a contagion of killing, Iraq could have descended into civil war (with the surge, not without it)
-Anbar awakening, thousands of Iraqis chose to fight against Al Qaeda  (we bribed them)

-killing in Iraq backed and financed by Iran (not exactly)

-strategic victory- effects of which will reverberate far beyond Iraq's borders (replace "strategic victory" with "biggest blunder in American history")

the battle is noble and necessary and just (really? Not really)

Have I missed anything?

Fox has a story on Obama's speech today and one part really stood out to me as really misleading:

"He pleaded with his audience to ignore comments like Wright’s that continue to see division and conflict as inescapable".

Obama hardly suggested we ignore Wright's comments, on the contrary, he denounced them and said we should face historical injustices that lead to anger like that.
It's only one sentence in the whole article but it misses Obama's larger point.
These little inaccuracies (like Kristol's) add up.
Click on the link and scroll toward the bottom of the article


http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/03/18/obama-condemns-wrights-rhetoric-but-defends-ongoing-relationship/

If it's true that Obama's associations with Rev. Wright or Louis Farrakhan has guided his judgment, or "moral compass", let's look at how it actually played out on a specific issue?
That's what it comes down to, right? How his alleged anti-American, black separatist beliefs have defined, or will define his politics?
How is it reflected in his approach to renewable energy and climate change, for example.
Or his plan to offer every American a college education?
How did his "moral compass" affect his judgment in any one of his legislative initiatives? Here's an edited list:

-Obama passed legislation with Republican Senator Jim Talent to give gas stations a tax credit for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. The tax credit covers 30 percent of the costs of switching one or more traditional petroleum pumps to E85, which is an 85 percent ethanol/15 percent gasoline blend.

-After a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Senator Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

-His first law was passed with Republican Tom Coburn, a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent.

-Obama created the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families in 2000 and successfully sponsored a measure to make the credit permanent in 2003. The law offered about $105 million in tax relief over three years.

-Obama joined forces with former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL) to pass the toughest campaign finance law in Illinois history. The legislation banned the personal use of campaign money by Illinois legislators and banned gifts from lobbyists. Before the law was passed, one organization ranked Illinois worst among 50 states for its campaign finance regulations.

-As a member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Obama has fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan.

-Obama has been a leading advocate for protecting the right to vote, helping to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and leading the opposition against discriminatory barriers to voting.

- In the U.S. Senate, Obama introduced the STOP FRAUD Act to increase penalties for mortgage fraud and provide more protections for low-income homebuyers, well before the current subprime crisis began.

-Obama sponsored legislation to combat predatory payday loans, and he also was credited with lobbied the state to more closely regulate some of the most egregious predatory lending practices.

-Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 to provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

-Obama worked to pass a number of laws in Illinois and Washington to improve the health of women. His accomplishments include creating a task force on cervical cancer, providing greater access to breast and cervical cancer screenings, and helping improve prenatal and premature birth services.

-Obama has introduced and helped pass bipartisan legislation to limit the abuse of no-bid federal contracts.

-Obama and Senator Feingold (D-WI) took on both parties and proposed ethics legislation that was described as the “gold standard” for reform. It was because of their leadership that ending subsidized corporate jet travel, mandating disclosure of lobbyists’ bundling of contributions, and enacting strong new restrictions of lobbyist-sponsored trips became part of the final ethics bill that was signed into law.