It would require significant tunnel vision to think MM was making anything other than a harmless (and appropriately clever) joke referencing Obama's gaffe in citing 10,000 tornado deaths in Kansas rather than the actual 10 or so.
The media has given Obama an appropriate pass on that blowing it off as an inadvertent error--a pass they (and the liberals they represent) do not generally extend to Republican or conservative candidates/politicians.
But there is always something to trip up a candidate. The following will also be presented as much ado about nothing if it is reported at all by the U.S. press, but it is illustrative of the kinds of tangled webs they all weave to present themselves as God's answer to the problems of the world.
And for those who think the union organized and backed assault on Wal-Mart is unAmerican and counter productive might want to look more closely at Senator Obama's position on that:
Obama called hypocrite for wife's Wal-Mart link
By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:37pm BST 12/05/2007
As a fluent public speaker, independent-minded wife, devoted mother and professional woman, Michelle Obama has been hailed as an invaluable asset to her husband Barack's mission to capture the Democratic 2008 presidential nomination.
Yet, while her style and performance are winning plaudits on the campaign trail, a little-reported business interest of Mrs Obama's has opened her husband up to one of the criticisms that politicians fear most - the taint of hypocrisy.
She is taking a break from her main job, as a well-remunerated Chicago hospital executive, to campaign for her husband. But she has just been re-elected to the board of an Illinois food-processing company, a position she took up two years ago to gain experience of the private sector.
And the biggest customer for the pickles and peppers produced by Treehouse Foods is the retail giant Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation and the bête noire of American liberals, including Sen Obama, for its employment practices, most notably its refusal to recognise trade unions.
As the Illinois senator prepared to join the presidential fray late last year, he threw his weight behind the union-backed campaign against Wal-Mart. He declared that there was a "moral responsibility to stand up and fight" the company and "force them to examine their own corporate values".
According to the couple's tax returns, Mrs Obama earned $51,200 (£25,700) for her work as a non-executive director on Treehouse's board last year, on top of the $271,618 salary she was paid as a vice-president of the University of Chicago Hospitals.
She also received 7,500 Treehouse stock options, worth a further $72,375, as she did the previous year, when she banked a $45,000 salary from the company.
The apparent contradiction between Sen Obama's political calculation to join the Wal-Mart-bashing lobby, and his wife's profitable role with a company that makes money from Wal-Mart, is being closely scrutinised by "opposition" research teams working for rival White House candidates, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
They are collecting information about Mrs Obama's Treehouse ties, anticipating that - in a country where "going dirty" is a political way of life - the link may provide valuable ammunition in the election campaign.
Such attacks could be particularly damaging for Sen Obama, who has promised a change from politics as usual. Just last week, on her first foray to the crucial first primary state of New Hampshire, Mrs Obama praised her husband's "moral compass", reflecting a key message of his campaign.
SOURCE and MORE HERE
