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Deborah
Howell simply does not know what she’s doing. I’m actually stunned she could
be so totally inept as to write about the Post’s regurgitation of rumors
of Obama in a way that has her saying drivel like: Stories about rumors
are tricky and easily misconstrued. … .. My problems with the story by National
Desk political reporter Perry Bacon Jr. and the headline (“Foes Use Obama’s
Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him”) were that Obama’s connections to
Islam are slender at best; that the rumors were old; and that convincing evidence
of their falsity wasn’t included in the story. That her defensive posturing
comes under the title Refuting, or Feeding, the Rumor Mill? makes it
even worse. How about We Were Dead Wrong and Made Fools of Ourselves in
the Process?
I ran down the
Post’s offensive smear in this post, along with other slams on Obama, including
the absurd flag
pin non story. It’s unfortunate that Howell in her ombudsman role can’t
just come out and say that they blew it, because they did. Instead, Howell adds
Clinton’s “rogue
agent” volunteer in a ham-handed effort to give them cover by implying
that if they’d only waited a little bit they’d have had a story on which to
hang their rehashing, a “perfect peg” as Howell writes,
about Mr. Obama that should never have seen the light of day from any legitimate
news organization. These two paragraphs really do take the cake:
… .. Bacon referred a request for comment to Bill Hamilton, assistant managing
editor for politics. Hamilton edited the story, which several top editors
saw before it was published. “I’m sorry it was misunderstood,” he
said. “It obviously makes me think about how I edited it. It seemed to
me the story made clear that Obama was not a Muslim but that the campaign
was having trouble contending with people spreading that rumor. I thought
that in this context saying it was a rumor meant it wasn’t true, but clearly
some people didn’t see it the same way. The Post has a responsibility to confront
seemingly credible rumors and that was one of the reasons for the story.”To make the story worth Page 1, there needed to be new, credible information.
No one from Iowa or New Hampshire, where Obama has been campaigning heavily,
was quoted. More reporting or waiting for a news peg for the story would have
helped. A perfect peg would have been the Hillary Clinton campaign’s dismissal
of a volunteer last week in Iowa for forwarding an e-mail saying Obama is
a Muslim. Hamilton said, “I don’t think rumors like this will die. Obama
is going to have a problem with them as long as he’s a candidate.” …
..
So in the middle of Howell copping to the fact that they got it wrong, she repeats the offensive comment from
the canned Clinton “rogue
agent,” slipping it in as to seemingly justify what the Post did
when there is no justification at all for it, as she simultaneously makes a lame attempt to prove why they did the story in the first place. Truly stunning.
After that beauty, Howell finally gets to the bottom line of the Post’s Obama
slur by saying five paragraphs before the end of her rambling defense that the
writer, Perry Bacon, Jr., also didn’t mention the investigation that found
the rumor to be false. That in and of itself should have inspired Howell
and the Post to openly admit, without caveat or using the Clinton canned aide story, that they screwed up and
We Were Dead Wrong and Made Fools of Ourselves in the Process.
The Post is also concerned that that “the people (the Post) have
heard from are not reasonable” about the Muslim slur on Obama being repeated, reopened,
re-examined and basically regurgitated yet again by Bacon, even after it was
proven to be a fantasy of some swiftboating attacker.
What’s equally depressing is that this entire episode has led to Mr. Obama posting a religion “Fact Page”
on his presidential website that screams in all caps OBAMA IS NOT AND HAS NEVER
BEEN A MUSLIM (in bold). The URL is equally telling: http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_is_a_committed_christian.php. Not only that, but the first three sentences of the page read like this, all of which are also in bold:
Obama Has Never Been A Muslim, And Is a Committed Christian
OBAMA IS NOT AND HAS NEVER BEEN A MUSLIM
Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim. Obama never prayed in a
mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed
Christian who attends the United Church of Christ.
So not only has the traditional media managed to swiftboat Mr. Obama, but he,
one of the leading Democratic candidates for president, feels so damaged, vigilant or down right paranoid about
this smear (and who can blame him in the current climate?) that he was compelled to distance himself so far away from Muslims
that he’s managed to now sound prejudice against them.
Quite a lesson being learned from this event. Religion in politics is leading us all to hell.
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