As Patterico notes, the NYT finally took some time to look into Obama and the CAC — but the story leaves much unremarked upon. Still, it’s a start:
Mr. Obama was nominated to the Challenge board and was elected chairman in 1995, said Ken Rolling, executive director of the group, which operated through 2001. Mr. Obama continued to teach law during his five-year unpaid tenure as board chairman, and he was twice elected to the Illinois Senate.
Several board members, including two university presidents, far outranked Mr. Obama in education experience.
“Let me say the room had no shortage of egos, including my own,†said Stanley O. Ikenberry, a board member who at the time was president of the University of Illinois. “It was unusual: here you had a person trained in the law chairing a board on school reform.†Still, he said, Mr. Obama won his colleagues’ respect.
Well and good. Obama seems quite adept at playing to the room.
But as Steve Diamond, the liberal labor activist and Obama critic who, along with conservative Stanley Kurtz, has been driving the Annenberg investigation (such as it’s been), notes, “[The NYT] still missed the heart of the story, but perhaps this will finally convince folks that unlike Gertrude Stein’s Oakland, in Chicago there is something there when it comes to Obama, Ayers and Annenberg.
Diamond goes on to break down the article point by point — taking the Times to task for some of its omissions and or/equivocations, before concluding:
It’s obvious, of course, why Obama never mentions [his role in the CAC]:
* the CAC was an abject failure – their own research, which Rolling recently tried to prevent the public from seeing – concluded the effort had “no effect” on student outcomes;
* and, of course, while sharing a fox hole with the unapologetic former terrorist Bill Ayers in the Chicago School Wars is harmless if one is planning, as Obama was at the time, on stepping into the shoes of the late black Mayor, Harold Washington, it is altogether a different matter when one is running for President of the United States.But the voters of the United States nonetheless deserve to know and understand precisely what this long-standing relationship between Ayers and Obama was all about. And yet we know more about the relationship between John McCain and the corrupt savings and loan shark Charles Keating than we do about Ayers and Obama.
[…]
Obama first told the electorate that he has nothing to do with Ayers at all, attempting to dismiss him as an aging radical who is just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.”
Last night, though, he told Bill O’Reilly only that he has not “seen” Ayers in a year and a half. That means, of course, they have “seen” each other since Obama announced his run for the Presidency and one is left wondering, do we now have to go back and ask about telephone and email contacts?
Why not clear the air with the full story? Isn’t it about time?
Attempts to tether Governor Sarah Palin to Pat Buchanan (along with other supposed anti-semites) and a secessionist party have both proven unremarkable — largely because they were so easily debunked. Attempts to tether her to cuts in funding for special needs children, or to economic mistreatment of rape victims, have, too, proven feeble — though I suspect that the goal here is to tarnish her in the aggregate by throwing anything and everything against the igloo wall and see what blubber happens to stick.
And yet here we are, months away from a presidential election, and the mainstream press has only tangentially and defensively explored the connections between Barack Obama and an unrepentant (and largely unreconstructed) domestic terrorist — even though Obama has lied both about the extent and duration of that relationship.
And that strikes me not only as proof of a partisan bias, but also as a failure of due dilligence — and even on the more extreme end, a dereliction of its duty.
Oh, we’ll get the full story, Jeff. It’ll be in the Nov. 5 edition of the NYT.
Meanwhile, a Lexis/Nexis search will show that the NYT “covered” the story…
Don’t be so suspicious, ya wingers!
*** BREAKING ***
– The Democratic chair of the DNC in S.Carolina, Carol Fowler told the press today: “John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate simply on a basis of her single qualification that shes never jad an abortion.”
– Holy feminism Batman!
That the same process you so roundly cheer when applied to Barack Obama will be used on Sarah Palin is what they call an eye for an eye.
Buckle up. Turbulence ahead. Sexist it’s not, tis true equality on the chopping block actually.
That the same process you so roundly cheer when applied to Barack Obama will be used on Sarah Palin is what they call an eye for an eye.
What process is that? The press actually investigating things O! did and asking him questions about it? that is going to happen someday?
That’ll be great. I do look forward to that.
As to turbulance, tell us about that bumpy ride your side is having – we do so like to hear about it.
– thor, I can’t tell you how hapy it makes me that the Obama camp is too dumb to stop chomping on the Palin hand grenade. BRING IT!
More rooting around needs to be done.
Oink!
– Fowler’s office said she is “out of state, and unavailable for further comment”.
– Oh yeh. That will quiet the shit storm. Excellent.
It’s coming all yup in yo grillz! It’s raining Palin rumors! Weee!
the more Palin rumors the better for McCain!! That is awesome Thor. Thanks for all the help you and your brethren have been giving us. Keep up the good work.
– Maybe if the CandyMan does a “Clinton”, and molests one of his fem campaign workers the phony Feminists will finally say something. Short of that it ain’t happnin’. Party above all.
And yet here we are, months away from a presidential election, and the mainstream press has only tangentially and defensively explored the connections between Barack Obama and an unrepentant (and largely unreconstructed) domestic terrorist  even though Obama has lied both about the extent and duration of that relationship.
And that strikes me not only as proof of a partisan bias, but also as a failure of due dilligence  and even on the more extreme end, a dereliction of its duty.
There was another op-ed column in the LAT today (by Tim Rutten – about his 3rd or 5th anti-Palin column) whining that Palin has not been made available to the press. Obviously, the press should get a chance to interview Palin, but Rutten’s column never acknowledges that the reason the MCCain campaign has held Palin back is that the press want to try to destroy her in a way that they would never do to a Democrat.
Obama’s handlers can comfortably allow him to give interviews because no one in the MSM will dare to ask him about CAC or ACORN. Palin is being briefed for her media interviews because the press is determined to caricature her as a religious extremist and to do her like they did Dan Qualye. She will not get the coddling from the press that Obama has enjoyed.
The LAT has printed at least one anti-Palin op-ed almost every day since her selection was announced. On some days they have run two anti-Palin op-eds on the same day. The closest they have come to a sympathetic portrayal of Palin was a column by Meghan Daum in which she recounts a visit to a cartoonish fundie couple and describes their positive opinion of Palin in the tone which a sociologist might describe some aboriginal tribe’s cannibalism rituals.
For a paper that claims to represent the diversity of opinion in Southern California it is shameful that the LAT has given its readers nothing but one-note anti-Palin news and opinion ever since her selection was announced.
Well, this is just a very small lie by Obama. At least he didn’t lie about debating John McCain anywhere, anytime. At least Barack Obama didn’t lie about accepting public funding if John McCain did. At least Obama didn’t lie about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright being his spiritual advisor for 20 years.
Barack Obama only lies about small stuff that no one, except racists, should worry about.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
In an AP article yesterday on earmarks the story noted that McCain “claimed” Obama requested $Xs in earmarks while in the Senate but for Palin they had a source. In another version of the same story they added Obama’s earmarks for just one year, implying that McCain was lying.
Can it really be true that less than two weeks after Palin was nominated the MSM had a Palin earmark analysis complete while they don’t have the same information on a candidate that has been running for President over a year? I believe it could be.
Which CandyMan is being referred to?
This:
Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew
Cover it with choc’late and a miracle or two
The Candy Man, oh the Candy Man can
The Candy Man can ’cause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good
or:
He’s a one stop shop, makes the panties drop
He’s a sweet-talkin’, sugar coated candy man
A sweet-talkin’, sugar coated candyman
Or:
Sickly sweet, his poison seeks
For the young ones who don’t understand
The danger in his hands
With a jaundiced wink see his cunning slink
Oh trust in me my pretty one
Come walk with me my helpless one
Candyman
/Maybe it doesn’t matter
– Heh. thor is doing the ole’ “shovlin shit against the tide” dance, even while hes sitting there wondering “what the fuck are these assholes in the Obama camp doing – they’re killing us.”
– ‘Course, he can’t admit that.
– Personally I think Obama’s smarter than this, but hes tired, and his handlers are sort of panicking a bit and jumping the shark.
– They better get it back on message – the press can’t cover their asses forever.
– BTW, has anyone seen Joe. Is he in South America vacationing, or did the Obama people finally duct tape his mouth shut.
– I’m still trying to figure out what he brings to the ticket, other than spotlighting his tickets #1 as inexperienced and not yet ready for prime time.
Joe is out asking crippled folks to stand up and stuff
BTW, has anyone seen Joe. Is he in South America vacationing, or did the Obama people finally duct tape his mouth shut.
Depite Joe’s 35 years as a public figure the MSM still has not been able to dig up any news about him. That whole “vetting” thing only applies to GOP candidates.
35 years in the Senate, yep, and I asked my 65yo mom what she thought of him – she was like, “never heard of him, who the Hell is he anyway?” LOL
– Huge scandal breaking in the Interior department, involving the oil companies.
– Drugs, favors, sex, subsidy pandering, the whole magilla.
35 years in the Senate, yep, and I asked my 65yo mom what she thought of him – she was like, “never heard of him, who the Hell is he anyway?†LOL
Mama Urthshu, he is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee but the LA Times just calls him “Regular Joe.”
As I have casually hypothisised, and was supported, tangentially, by John Fund in the Wall Street Yesterday, there are probably more people in Alaska trying to dig up dirt on Gov. Palin than there are in Chicago looking into Obama’s chequered past.
I’m hoping that Kurtz and Diamond will hit the “mother lode” of O!s background, or the coordinated attempt to supress that information, well before the election…
And BTW thor, Palin has already been subject to more intense and active scrutiny in the space of a few weeks than O! has for 18 months…
Kinda tough when that Thowin’ that race card wears out, eh..?
#
Comment by Great Banana on 9/10 @ 1:59 pm #
the more Palin rumors the better for McCain!! That is awesome Thor. Thanks for all the help you and your brethren have been giving us. Keep up the good work.
Oh yes, yes it does! Like calling the nice lady standing next to me who also lives with me a chain-smoking Russian whore. Tbya vse ochen klossney! Classy nana-s!
Flambéed Moose tossins, it’s what’s for breakfast! Mmmm!
They sent him out shuckin’ for Jews in retirement homes — which usually is done as press cover for the campaign crew to register all the residents and pass along lists of geezers to friendly poll workers who cast late votes for Democrats on behalf of the ones who are too sick or dead to make it.
Usually.
But, you know, change and stuff.
*Personally I think Obama’s smarter than this, but hes tired, and his handlers are sort of panicking a bit and jumping the shark.*
My guess is his inner circle is not particularly talented, due to lack of experience (see Obama, Michelle) and the democratic mercs working for Obama’s campaign realized early on that their God-Man had feet of clay and there was only so much they could do. They may just throw up their hands and blame Obama’s big mouth (lipstick ! elventy111!) for losing the campaign- he does seem to insert his foot into his mouth on a regularity which seems odd for the future Emperor of Earth.
I also blame alot of this democratic mess on the people who insisted on ousting the Clintons. Yes, they’re liars and cheaters but they’re well practiced and when you’re selling a socialist agenda, you better be able to lie with a straight face and resist the urge to call reporters “sweetie” (did William Jefferson ever do that ?)
My guess is his inner circle is not particularly talented, due to lack of experience…
Some of them, Axelrod for example is extremely talented, or they would never have gotten this far. It reminds me of a great coaching staff taking a bunch of overachievers to the play-offs, you may be impressive in the early rounds, but by the finals that lack of talent on the field is going to catch up with you. Obama and Biden aren’t championship caliber.
It’s a self-imposed duty, Jeff. And like any self-imposed duty it can be dropped when it becomes inconvenient. The problem is that the pious claims about being a public watchdog are still being made when it is obvious those claims are not accurate. The spotlight Gov. Palin is under has been far more intense than the spotlight that has been focused on Sen. Obama. I know a lot more about Gov. Palin’s children in the less than two weeks she has been on the national campaign trail than I know about the CAC, for example.
It would be more dangerous if the press had the same respect it held in the days of Walter Cronkite.
[…] Jeff G., SarahW and Dan note, the O! “education” project that burned through $150 million of […]
At this point, watching the MSM go bugfuck crazy trying to bring down the Moosinator is a joy. They have to know by now that the sliming is backfiring, but they can’t help themselves.
I’m waiting for the big Stanley Kurtz report, he should have something out any day now, I hope. Then we’ll see some change.
re: Obama’s handlers.
It would appear that Keith Olbermann has as much influence on Obama as anyone. I watched the Obama/Olbermann interviews this week, and it was more a strategy session than any interview I’ve ever seen. Olbermann told Obama it was ‘ok’ to start calling his opponents liars because he has his back and will expose all those Palin lies, asked Obama to denounce the Republican’s for using 9-11 images at the RNC, and he encouraged him to call a press conference and proclaim “Enough!”.
Olbermann went out and found the only progressive journalist in the State of Alaska and brought her on to smear Palin over rape kits and bridges, then as the show was going to break he looked into the camera and told the audience something about a VP candidate speaking in tongues leading the free world. This was just last night.
I’ll wait on Stan, Jim.
Right now there’s another carnival going on, complete with self-immolation by the Democrats’ and their allies.
Talk about ‘must see tv’.
My guess is his inner circle is not particularly talented, due to lack of experience (see Obama, Michelle) and the democratic mercs working for Obama’s campaign realized early on that their God-Man had feet of clay and there was only so much they could do.
I think that the people he has surrounded himself with are inbred corrupt pols. Everything has to have an angle. Everybody is a shill for someone else. Honesty is something you invoke to get elected. Never a “Hi howareya?” , but “Who sent you?” They regard you/us as extremely stupid. Needing to be led around by our betters. Them.
I’m going to go annoy some trout now. Bye.
Oh, please. The guy is a Dem Senator from Chicago.
You don’t get to BE that without somebody in the machine having a very firm grip on your short and curlies. It is not possible.
Think Dickie Durbin. ‘Nuff said?