Anybody that campains for a candidate, be it the candidates wife or a celebrity or anyone else that puts themselves in the public eye, is fair game to be commented on.
If Michelle didnt want the attention, she should have stayed out of the spotlight.
mysteryman wrote:Anybody that campains for a candidate, be it the candidates wife or a celebrity or anyone else that puts themselves in the public eye, is fair game to be commented on.
If Michelle didnt want the attention, she should have stayed out of the spotlight.
Indeed.
Obama getting all butch about criticism about Michelle is laughable. Does he really think he needs to publicly enlarge his testicles?
He loves her - that's grand. He thinks she is the most wonderful person he has ever met - that's swell. He's threatening anyone who dares to criticize her - that's pathetic.
She is a bright and talented woman. If she chooses to wade into the campaign she has accepted all of the the rules of the whole game.
If she is to be out of bounds, then she needs to shut up and bake cookies.
Myth: Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis is secret.
Myth sighting:
woiyo wrote:Clearly Rezko and Wright will be issues the Republicans will jump on. Then there is the issue of Mrs. Obama and her secret thesis.
That should be fun!!!
http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3269133#3269133
Fact: No, it's not secret. You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642.html
WOW. February this was published, now Princeton will not release it. Good reason too if you read it.
I read her conclusion and as an American Indian, I am offended by her comments that relate to the "black man's struggles" in this country. Maybe she should but her "blackness" aside and at the struggles of my ancestors.
She is a time bomb waiting to blow. Can't wait for the show!!!
There is a rumor buzzing around political blogs that there is a video tape on which Mrs Obama can be seen and heard ranting about race and using the term "Whitey."
From what I can tell there's no more truth to it than the story circulated (even here on A2K) that McCain called his wife the c-word in public.
Let's just assume it is out there.
If the Republicans have a copy they would be wise to wait until a week or so before the election to release it. The way candidates seem to be able to sweep away any problem given enough time, it makes sense to save it for the right time.
If you worked on Obama's campaign and you knew the tape existed becuase the campaign had a copy, would you advise Obama to leak it ASAP in order to have as much time as possible for damage control, or would you urge him to balls it out and hope the Repubs didn't have a copy?
Again, I've seen no evidence that proves the tape exists, and I doubt it does. This is just a political hypothetical - what would you do?
woiyo wrote:
WOW. February this was published, now Princeton will not release it. Good reason too if you read it.
Good grief Woiyo, how many times do I have to repeat IT IS RELEASED. Click on the link above, you can read it.
(And I just realized you contradict yourself in your post -- how can you know there is a good reason for not releasing it if you've read it... because, ya know, IT'S BEEN RELEASED!
)
Finn, that myth has been examined on Talking Points Memo.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/power_broker.php
In general, I think earlier is better for any bad stuff. I don't believe this one though.
Ha! That was hilarious, Butflynet.
By the way, Obama has gone pro-active on the smears. Check it out.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/
Yep, I've been a part of a rapid response group working on that fight for over a year now. The creation of that smear website has been in the works for quite awhile and thank goodness the campaign's HQ has finally seen the need for it.
Hope you signed up to help out with the fight.
Butrflynet wrote:For the Kickster. Kicky, please forward these corrections to the email list from which the original came from.
Quote:I had been wanting to go back through and fact-check these misquotes for some time. It's been tough since none are cited by page number (no surprise) so I finally decided to just download an unabridged copy from ebooks.com to assist in the search and go through each one below. I hope that you find this useful in quickly dealing with these emails and posts. I also found it worthwhile at this point to just re-read and put into context many of the rites of passage I think many of us can relate to in this well-written account that just so happens to be from a great candidate for President. As for the target audience:
There are some who have already made up their minds and will see what they choose to see regardless of context. This is not for them.
There are others who are equivocating or Democrats or Independents or new voters or Republicans "on-the-fence" and, although they may not find the source of the original taken-out-of-context sound-bites credible, could be left with an impression that, until they or someone else do a little more digging, may sit in their minds to come back again on election day. This is for them.
Finally, for those of us who look forward to voting for Barack Obama in November I hope this is a tiny way to take another look at this very insightful and truly American story. This is for you too.
Following is each (mis)quote in bold followed by the actual quote and context with paginated citations so that anyone can check for themselves and/or build on this:
Misquoted and out of context from Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites'
In the paragraph prior to this quote (Introduction: pp. xiv-xv), Obama talks of his mother's 6 year old cousin who had "already lost" his innocence after reporting to his parents that some of his first grade "classmates had refused to play with him because of his dark skin". As you read further you can see the implications of this on Obama's life growing up and why he felt compelled to bring up his mother's race until "the age of 12 or 13":
Actual quote:"When people who don't know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites) I see the the split-second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign." (Introduction: Page xv)
Nowhere to be found in Dreams from My Father: 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.'
I cannot locate this anywherein "Dreams of My Father" after searching on each key word through an unabridged copy downloaded from ebooks.com. We can simply shoot this one quote down and rightfully attack the credibility of the entire post.
Misquoted and taken out of context from Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'
When Obama was still in New York (after graduating Columbia) and at the point of almost giving up on organizing, he gets a call from Marty Kaufman who had "started an organizing drive in Chicago and was looking to hire a trainee." (Story begin on page 140). After talking about Chicago, the Cubs, his organizing efforts, Harold Washington, the South Side community, etc... he offers Obama the job with a small salary and travel expense. When Marty leaves, Obama walks home and thinks about this man and the offer (starting his community organizing days in Chicago):
Actual quote: "He was smart, I decided. He seemed committed to his work. Still, there was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white - he'd said himself that was a problem." (Page 142).
Later, Obama sits down on a bench to consider his options. A "black woman and her young son approach" and the boy asks him why the East River goes one way and the other. Obama explains the tides. "The answer seemed to satisfy the boy..." "As I watched the two of them disappear into dusk, I realized I had never noticed which way the river ran. A week later, I loaded up my car and drove to Chicago." (Page 143). Obama quickly recognizes that his back and forth on Marty, the situation, etc... is like the East River - it's going to go back and forth no matter what - it's time to act and he does.
Taken out of context from Dreams of My Father: ; 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names'
(Page 101). Obama is IN COLLEGE. He is posing, finding his identity.
Prior to this quote he explains the early pressure of fitting in with the so-called campus "radicals" to "avoid being mistaken for a sellout." (page 100). Starting on page 101 right after the quote, he goes through an incident where he is "called out" on this attitude. Thinking back, he realizes that "the whole year seemed like one big lie..." as he then matures beyond this perspective (Page 102).
I am sure none of us copped similar attitudes while in college or in our late teens/early twenties.
Altered quote and completely taken out of context from Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'
Actual quote: (in context, is addressing his earlier attitude towards his step dad and grandfather): "...men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela." (Page 220).
In the very next paragraph Obama writes, "Now...that image had suddenly vanished." " To think all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost!" as Obama comes to terms with the image versus the reality of his father.
Anyone out there not go through a similar process with their father?
Audacious quote-twisting and re-creation of meaning from Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'
Actual quote: "Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." (page 261).
I don't see anything that particularly changes the context of the remarks... I'm not trying to slam Obama... I just don't see it.
Here's one that's bound to get traction:
Obama half-brother Malik contends Barrack was a muslim --- photos and all!
Smear or truth? You be the judge.
Somewhere in his multi-cultural past (let's not forget he had an Indonesian step-dad (or equivalent) he may have intersected with Islam. So what?
He claims christian status for at least the last 20 years. Does it really matter to christians whether he came to their beliefs from aetheism or Islam?
Let's assume for 18 months or so his step-dad forced him into a weak alignment with Islam, so what?
The "so-what" though is that for many Americans, Islam is a taint and especially so for a presidential candidate. How many Americans? Enough that Obama is desperate to deny any association with the religion of The Enemy, and his hard-core opponents are desperate to establish such an association.
So what is Obama to do?
Deny, deny, deny like every "Old Politician" is expected to do, or acknowledge the truth: He was never a devoted muslim, but got caught up, for a brief time, in parental pressures and went through the motions.
Clearly, he's chosen the Old Politician response which would be OK except that he scorns the species and lays claim to a transcendent status.
If he loses the election it will be because of hubris and the inevitable inability to live up to the Powerpoint bullets.
If he wins, he will, nevertheless, have established the framework of his ruination.
The Greeks were spot on about hubris.
Quote:Deny, deny, deny like every "Old Politician" is expected to do, or acknowledge the truth: He was never a devoted muslim, but got caught up, for a brief time, in parental pressures and went through the motions.
So you know he got up caught up for a brief time in Islam and just went through the motions and that is the truth Obama should acknowledge?
Apparently this newest thing started with two lines from his half brother which is even unclear what he meant and is now impossible to find the original artcle by all accounts.
Quote:"if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background."
source
If he was a Muslim there is no way he would have gotten as far as he has. It's an ugly truth but there it is. So far all we know is that he attended an Islamic school which had people of other religions, traditions in attendance for 'a brief while'.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/christian
Listen to the video about the school if interested. It could be this is the "muslim background" Obama's half brother is referring to.
Evidently Barack and Malik didn't even meet until 1985. (When Barack was 23.)
Also, the link between Malik and Barack Obama (II) is their father, Barack Obama (I). Malik has no connection to Lolo Soetero, Barack Obama's Indonesian step-father. (Barack Obama's white American mother married Soetero.)
So Malik has no particular first-hand knowledge of this stuff.
Wow, the list of people connected to Obama that he has to disavow just keeps growing. I wonder if will have any friends or relatives left come November?
BBB
John McCain's mother told a reporter that John has three testicles, which is why he was a better womanizer than Bill Clinton.
BBB
sozobe wrote:Evidently Barack and Malik didn't even meet until 1985. (When Barack was 23.)
Also, the link between Malik and Barack Obama (II) is their father, Barack Obama (I). Malik has no connection to Lolo Soetero, Barack Obama's Indonesian step-father. (Barack Obama's white American mother married Soetero.)
So Malik has no particular first-hand knowledge of this stuff.
Apparently, all this stuff about "Obama's background" seems to be based on an AP article from 2004. It seems that during Barack's bid for Congress, somebody tracked down his half-brother Malik and wrote a short article that was later published on MSNBC.
From the article:
Quote:Though peaceful, life can be hard in this part of Kenya, one of the East African nation's poorest regions. Not only is there little infrastructure, but the region is prone to drought, which leaves many hungry.
Still, Malik Obama prefers the village to the fast-paced capital, Nairobi, where he grew up. He runs an electronics shop in a town a half-hour drive away, and works as a consultant in Washington for a few months each year.
It was in the United States, in 1985, that he first met his 43-year-old half-brother Barack.
[rem: this seems to be a bit confusing. Obama was 43 years old at the time the article was written, not at the time Malik and Obama met for the first time.]
"He was best man at my wedding and I was best man at his," said Malik, who likes to point out that his younger brother's name is actually Barack Obama II, because their father was the original Barack Obama.
Their paternal grandfather, Onyango Hussein Obama, was one of the first Muslim converts in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Malik said. However, not all of his descendants are Muslim, Malik added. Barack is Christian.
Several websites that mentioned Malik Obama and Obama's "Muslim background" ultimately linked to or quoted that article - sometimes with Malik showing a photo of the wedding in 1985.
Obviously, the article doesn't mention that Barack was brought up as a Muslim, simply because Malik couldn't have known; he hadn't met his half-brother until Barack was 23 years old.
The only thing this latest attack can rely on is that Barack's grandfather was a Muslim. However, it omits the bit about Barack himself being a Christian.
(-> link to
article from 2004)
BBB
Good research Old Europe, thanks.
BBB
Obama accuser has long rap sheet
Obama accuser has long rap sheet
By: Ben Smith - Politico
June 18, 2008 08:56 AM EST
Larry Sinclair is wanted in Colorado, but you can catch him today at the National Press Club.
Sinclair is familiar to political junkies and reporters as the source of outlandish allegations about Senator Barack Obama, tales that began with sex and drugs and moved on to murder.
The Duluth, Minnesota, resident is the sort of figure who appears at the margins of every presidential campaign, and both Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had their own obscure accusers with dramatic allegations. But as the old media ignores him, Sinclair has taken full advantage of the Internet, and a video in which he makes his claims that have been viewed more than 900,000 times on YouTube.
This afternoon, he's reserved the Holeman Lounge at downtown Washington's National Press Club to try to lend his story the legitimacy that comes with national media attention.
Sinclair's biography, though, may get in the way of that pitch: Public records and court filings reveal that he has a 27-year criminal record, with a specialty in crimes involving deceit. The record includes forgery charges in two states, one of which drew Sinclair a 16-year jail sentence. The Pueblo County, Colorado, Sheriff's Office also has an outstanding warrant for Sinclair's arrest for forging an acquaintance's signature and stealing her tax refunds.
"It is what it is," said Sinclair's spokesman, Montgomery Blair Sibley, of his client's criminal record. "He's not hiding from it, he's not denying it."
Addressing the Pueblo County theft charges, Sinclair swore in a 2004 affidavit that his "ALLEGED VICTIM SEEKS TO USE DEFENDANT AS SCAPE GOAT FOR HER HUSBANDS AND BROTHERS PROBLEMS WITH MEXICAN DRUG DEALERS."
Sinclair's affidavit, which he posted to his blog, accompanied a request to a Colorado judge to dismiss the warrant on the grounds that Sinclair was "disabled with [a] severe spine injury and nerve damage,"
that returning to Colorado would put his life in danger, and that he was "terminally ill."
Sinclair, who is still alive, is 46, stands 5'7", and weights 168 pounds, according to arrest records. Colorado records list him with 13 aliases, including "Larye Vizcarra Avila" and "Mohammed Gahanan." His story has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, because he's been unable to substantiate his allegations. He has come to public attention recently, however, because his planned appearance at the National Press Club drew complaints from a wide array of prominent liberal bloggers, led by Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher. Their petition to prevent Sinclair from renting space at the club - which bloggers feared would lend him credibility - drew more than 11,000 signatures.
Press Club President Sylvia Smith said Sinclair had rented space at the club, which doesn't censor speakers.
"I'm not aware that we've ever turned anybody away for content," she said, adding that Sinclair's allegations "don't seem very credible."
Politico isn't reprinting Sinclair's allegations because they are unsubstantiated.
This February, the website Whitehouse.com reportedly offered Sinclair $100,000 if he could pass a polygraph test verifying his claims. He took them up on it, and the site said in a press release that the polygraph organizers said his results "indicated deception." Sinclair then suggested the polygraph's sponsors had been bribed to skew the results against him, an allegation his lawyer, Sibley, said he would expand on at his press conference.
Sibley is best known as the lawyer for the "D.C. Madam," the late Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Earlier this year, the Florida Bar Association suspended Sibley's license to practice law, in part for being a "vexatious litigant," a suspension that applies in Washington, D.C. as well.
Wednesday, Whitehouse.com has scheduled a competing press conference outside the National Press Club to discuss the results of the polygraph.
Sinclair's brushes with the government long predate his recent interest in Senator Obama. The details of his criminal record surfaced after he filed a defamation suit in federal court in Washington, D.C. against three anonymous online critics with names like TubeSockTedD who had written, among other claims, that he was living in a mental institution at the time he allegedly met Obama. Sinclair denies the claim.
In response to his suit, a lawyer for the anonymous bloggers hired local attorneys and private investigators, and dug up details of Sinclair's criminal record from Colorado, Florida, and South Carolina. The lawyer, Paul Levy of the nonprofit Public Citizen Litigation Group, provided his client's filings in federal court, which are publicly available, to Politico.
The records tell the story of an itinerant life of small-time crime and bad checks, punctuated by stretches of jail time in two states.
He was first arrested on a larceny charge in 1981 in Denver, according to his Colorado arrest record, as filed in federal court. In 1985, he was convicted of theft and of forging a check in Florida, and sentenced to a year in jail, according to Florida records filed in federal court.
After the Florida episode, according to the records, he returned to Colorado, where he faced check fraud and credit card charges in 1986. Then, in 1987, he was convicted in Colorado on more serious forgery charges, and sentenced to 16 years in jail.
In prison, according to state records filed in federal court, Sinclair was disciplined 97 times for infractions including assault, threats, drug possession, intimidation, and verbal abuse, most recently in
1996.
"He has not institutionalized well," a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections, Liz McDonough, told the Denver Post in 1996 after a month-long Sinclair hunger strike. She said he had served time in prisons in Buena Vista, Delta, Limon and Canon City before being transferred to the state's maximum security penitentiary in 1993.
In the summer of 1996, according to Colorado's state court database, he began proceedings to formally change his name from LA Rye Viz. Avila to Larry Wayne Sinclair. By 1999, according to a mention in a local newspaper, he was out of jail and living in Pueblo, Colo.
The Public Citizen investigator in Colorado stated that Sinclair's outstanding legal troubles there appear to date from 2001, and that Sinclair's effort to convince the judge in 2004 to dismiss those charges failed. The Pueblo County Sheriff's website, which pictures Sinclair under the word "Wanted," cites felony theft and forgery charges.
Sinclair was also arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in South Carolina last September, according to state records filed in federal court.
Sinclair has said that he tried to contact Obama in 2007 to discuss his claims and was ignored, forcing him to go public. On January 18, 2008, a one minute and 42 second video was posted to YouTube. It features Sinclair, speaking in a high voice and wearing a red shirt and blue baseball cap, reciting his allegations and addressing Obama.
"I challenge you to take a polygraph test," he says in the video.
Since then, he's promoted and elaborated on his claims, and engaged in intense online exchanges with infuriated Obama supporters on his blog and in federal court, where Sinclair and Sibley's defamation claim has suffered a series of legal setbacks.
Obama's spokesman declined to comment on any aspect of Sinclair's story, or his appearance at the press club.
Despite the warrant for Sinclair's arrest, he appears likely to stay out of jail, as long as he stays out of Colorado. Pueblo County Undersheriff J.R. Hall said that the warrant doesn't allow for extradition from out of state.
"I doubt very seriously we're going to be in that jurisdiction tomorrow," Undersheriff Hall said of Washington, D.C.
Sinclair's notoriety, and his scheduled press conference, however, has drawn the interest of the Colorado authorities.
"We've notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they will investigate," Hall said.
------------------------------------------------------
Disclosure: Public Citizen, which represents the bloggers Sinclair sued, also represents Ben Smith in an unrelated case.
