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The Attempt To Find An Obama Scandal
It is apparently going on now…
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14 Responses to “The Attempt To Find An Obama Scandal”
LOL – How can Obama be accused of a scandal when he only married one woman? John McCain didn't leave his first wife and children for a trophie bride with millions…
And let's not forget that McCain also had a more recent affair (rumored).
Then there's Sarah Palin and the rumored affair with her husband's (now former) business partner that was in the National Enquirer the same time that McCain was suspending his campaign over the bailout bill…. Sure it may have been in the NE, but so was Edwards' affair (which did prove to be true). I'm convinced that McCAin “suspended” his campaign not because of the bailout or his sinking poll numbers, but because he was trying to deflect attention from the Palin affair…
Too bad the timing was sucky for the story and it received zero attention. For the record I don't read the NE or believe any story unless it trash talk on an opponent. 
Why would they want to bring that up when it is a known fact that McCain was unfaithful to his first wife with his second??? Its sad when campaigns degenerate into this kind of trash.
Uh, gee, did anyone notice that the people who 'brought this up' say that they're loyal Democrats?
I don't think it's helpful or relevant to examine the candidates' personal lives like this, but no one on the McCain side appears to be involved in this at all, so why are you guys bringing up his first marriage and the ridiculous smears that the NYT made about a 'possible affair' with a lobbyist? The only relevance there is to point out the double standard- NYT runs a major story with absolutely no basis to it, but here when a paper runs a story about rumors regarding Obama they make sure to report that the woman in question says that it's 'vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.' No media bias there!
And how about TMV's impartiality- Jazz Shaw ran with the rumors about Palin and when I snarked about the source being the Enquirer (long noted for alien abduction stories and women giving birth to werewolves and such) he responded by pointing out that the Enquirer was right about Edwards. Do we give them the same weight now that they're reporting that Obama had an affair?
Yeah, I thought not.
CS- The rumor may have been started by loyal Democrats, but it is being spread now by the right– who also have spread the rumors that Obama was an anti-American Muslim started by the unstable Andy Martin:
“Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.
But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government”
When called on it- the programmers asserted that the show was based on opinion!
Kim, I couldn't even follow all of that, but even if I take your point at face value that a low life GOP supporter has been part of spreading this rumor, it's still much different than claiming that anyone close to the McCain camp (or any of his more normal, rational supporters) is doing so.
I mean, there are 527's who run ads like the one that showed Mccain's facial surgery scars as though he were Frankenstein and raised fears about his cancer risk- but I'm not pretending that this is a strategy that Obama or most of his supporters support.
And in connection with the guy you mentioned, Kim, <a href=” http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/10/t… just saw this (like Tom Maguire, I'd never heard of Andy Martin before but I have no doubt that nuts like him exist- but also like Maguire, I question why this is such an important story relative to the amount of time that the NYT spends on anything negative to do with Obama)
They had a “friendship”, oooooohhhh, steamy!
CS-
Its important because a major cable news network made a documentary out of it, did not question its validity or Martin's sanity, and it was watched by millions of voters. They later claimed it was an opinion piece.
So here's some rumor that was started by a complete nut that's been proven false– but one that many people believe. Remember the lady at the McCain rally last week???
Are you trying to say that Fox has no ties to the RNC?
Kim, how many anti-McCain rumors have been given elevated status by the NYT, WaPo, etc??
At least in the case of Fox, the Dems have a ready made rebuttal because almost everyone agrees that Fox has a bias and isn't journalistically serious (a reputation which is partly deserved, partly not- sometimes they actually cover things that no one else does, and it's a shame that the rest of their shoddy biased reporting kills their credibility.)
Centrists still haven't come to the conclusion that traditionally ethical media sources like NYT are completely in the tank now, so when GOP complains it comes across as whining and playing the refs.
I can't speak to the NYT's because I only read selected articles on blogs- but I read WaPo daily– and really don't remember them rumormongering that much. They actually have a fact checking column in the political section. I'm not saying you're wrong. Maybe if you gave an example. In any case, there are other media outlets that are strictly conservative— The Washington Times, The New York Post, the WSJ, for example.
The problem with Fox is that while we know that they have little journalistic cred– do you really think the millions that are faithful viewers all know that? They are the king of cable news., with Hannity a rising star and OR an established one. Even Olbermann can only dream of achieving either of their ratings- and his show is the most watched on MSNBC.
I would like to see the media and both campaigns be more responsible – because that would help voters make a better decision.
Kim, anyone who takes Fox at their word wasn't going to vote for Obama, regardless. My point is that the outlets that are trusted by centrists have even greater obligation to steer clear of rumormongering, because they do hold sway with the critical group of swing voters. And the independent voters themselves need to hold those news outlets to a higher standard- stop thinking that because a story appears there that it probably has some validity, and instead read the story carefully to see if the conclusion of validity is really supported by facts.
I don't think WaPo has been as bad, but one area where I think they're stirring the pot is in the way they're portraying the so-called “angry mobs' at McCain Palin rallies. I've said before (but can't prove it of course- I'm only pointing out as I suggested above, that the burden of proof should be on the reporters themselves) that Dana Milbank appears to have way overstated this, including potentially making up stuff like the guy yelling “kill him”. No one else appears to have heard that, no tapes of it seem to exist, the Secret Service guys there didn't hear it, yet because Milbank reported this it has now become accepted as fact that people in crowds are calling for assassination of Obama. If untrue, that's outrageous. If true, then why isn't Milbank doing more to substantiate it and make sure the threat is handled (he didn't return phone calls to the Secret Service when they got wind of it and tried to follow up on whether or not a threat was actually made!)
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