Obama Responds

[Lulu2]

From my email today. GO GET 'EM, Mr. Obama!

Obama is aggressively going after Fox News today for pushing that smear-job
report claiming that he went to an Islamic “madrassa” school as a child.
The report has already been completely debunked by CNN, but Obama isn't
letting up.

The Senator's office has just emailed out a blistering memo targeting Fox
that says the following:

In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked
story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites
unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator
Obama was enrolled for “at least four years” in an Indonesian
“Madrassa”. The article says the “sources” believe the Madrassa was
“espousing Wahhabism,” a form of radical Islam.


Insight Magazine published these allegations without a single named
source, and without doing any independent reporting to confirm or
deny the allegations. Fox News quickly parroted the charges, and Fox
and Friends host Steve Doocy went so far as to ask, “Why didn’t
anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised — spent the
first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim
and was educated in a Madrassa?”


All of the claims about Senator Obama raised in the Insight Magazine
piece were thoroughly debunked by CNN, which, instead of relying on
unnamed sources, sent a reporter to Obama’s former school in Jakarta
to check the facts.


If Doocy or the staff at Fox and Friends had taken [time] to check
their facts, or simply made a call to his office, they would have
learned that Senator Obama was not educated in a Madrassa, was not
raised as a Muslim, and was not raised by his father – an atheist
Obama met once in his life before he died.


Later in the day, Fox News host John Gibson again discussed the
Insight Magazine story without any attempt to independently confirm
the charges.


All of the claims about Senator Obama’s faith and education raised in
the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false.
Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his
stepfather and mother. Obama’s stepfather worked for a U.S. oil
company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as
well as two years of public school. As Obama described it, “Without
the money to go to the international school that most expatriate
children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the
streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.”
[The Audacity of Hope, p. 274]


To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a
Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of
Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended
in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a
Madrassa.


These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of
politics the American people have grown tired of, and that Senator
Obama is trying to change by focusing on bringing people together to
solve our common problems.

This is just another reason we can't get decent people into politcs...constant attacks, malicious lies, covert spying....

[Galbally]

Well it was a good rebuttal anyway, I will say that for him, but is he actually any good as a politician aside from all this "he's an untrustworthy Asian black Muslim/Jew Commie/Nazi!" smear campaign? Whats the "real" obama like? Is he interesting, or just another boring politco type? He certainly has raised his profile anyway, thats never bad.

[Lulu2]

He's young, moderate, high-energy, extremely likeable...and people are excited to see and hear him. Does he have the experience, having just a few years as a Senator? Maybe not. Some time as vice-pres. might be valuable.

You'd have to see his fresh, open manner to understand. I think he'll be a powerful force in politics here.

[DesignerGal]

I love this guy. I'd vote for him.

[Lulu2]

He's got that kind of "KENNEDY" energy...young, vital, moderate...I agree, DG--I'd vote for him.

[DesignerGal]

I think we need someone "fresh" in the White House.

[Lulu2]

He's giving us a chance, once & for all, to dispell the notion that everyone here is racist, etc. It's the first time in years we've had anyone inspiring to stand on the ballot. What about a Clinton/Obama ticket? Think they could win? THAT would be a first!

[DesignerGal]

Originally Posted by Lulu2

He's giving us a chance, once & for all, to dispell the notion that everyone here is racist, etc. It's the first time in years we've had anyone inspiring to stand on the ballot. What about a Clinton/Obama ticket? Think they could win? THAT would be a first!

I was just talking about HIl and Obama running together and how a seat in the VP chair might give him a good boost for election as President next time around. I think they'd make a good team. Lets see if that happens!

[Sweet Tooth]

Originally Posted by DesignerGal

I think we need someone "fresh" in the White House.

I agree 110% which is why I think Condi is a GREAT choice!

Thought you would like that DG

[spot]

The weasel-words in the OP quotation are "... cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim ..." which translates to "We got this from the Clinton machine" - in other words either this mud sticks to Obama (and we win) or this mud stuck to Hillary (and we win).

Fox, being Fox, pushes this angle somewhat less obliquely for those retards who actually watch their channels and don't get subtle implications without them being hit home with a mallet...

Americans have a visceral reaction to the word madrassa. In our world a madrassa is where zealots train young Muslim kids to hate America, to hate the West, and to be killers. Saying Obama attended a madrassa is tying Obama's name to terrorism. And that, my friends, is real political hardball in action, especially when Obama himself has said in his own book that he attended a predominantly Muslim school as a youngster in Indonesia — translation: madrassa.

Are Hillary's fingerprints on the story? Doesn't seem so because they can deny these stories with a straight face.

When the story popped up on FOX this morning Obama's people were furious. They issued a statement Friday afternoon stating that Obama had never attended any radical Muslim school and any assertion that he did was false. But it's bare-knuckle politics, and they know they've been had.

My point is simply this: The senator from Illinois is going to get a baptism by fire if he thinks he's going to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination. And if he thinks he is going to get a free ride he only has to look at today's issue of Insight magazine.

Me, I just think Fox doesn't wish either of them well.

Neither of them's going to win in the November election, whichever of them gets to be the candidate for office on the presidential ballot. The one because she was slimed for eight years while her husband was in office to the point where so many Americans knee-jerk at the mere mention of her name, the other because he only scores one out of four on the WASP scorecard. Is there an up-side to all this? Only one that I can think of. The current administration's going to have to lance its own boils instead of heaving a sigh of relief and letting the enemy do it for them.