From FactCheck.org: Obama’s “creative” clippings
By NoQuarter on January 3, 2008 at 12:40 PM in Health Care, John Edwards, Obama
I’ve become increasingly concerned about the embellishments, the falsely slanted re-writings of newspaper accounts, and the smears coming from Barack Obama and his campaign.
Here’s Annenberg Political Fact Check.org on “Obama’s Creative Clippings: Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama’s health plan.”
Obama’s ad touting his health care plan quotes phrases from newspaper articles and an editorial, but makes them sound more laudatory and authoritative than they actually are.
- It attributes to The Washington Post a line saying Obama’s plan would save families about $2,500. But the Post was citing the estimate of the Obama campaign and didn’t analyze the purported savings independently.
- It claims that "experts" say Obama’s plan is "the best." "Experts" turn out to be editorial writers at the Iowa City Press-Citizen – who, for all their talents, aren’t actual experts in the field.
- It quotes yet another newspaper saying Obama’s plan "guarantees coverage for all Americans," neglecting to mention that, as the article makes clear, it’s only Clinton’s and Edwards’ plans that would require coverage for everyone, while Obama’s would allow individuals to buy in if they wanted to.
Check out the Analysis section subheadings: “Obama Writes His Own Reviews” … “Obama Strengthens His Own Reviews” … “Obama Edits His Own Reviews.” The accumulation of accounts of Sen. Obama’s self-aggrandizement worries me more and more, particularly because those “in awe” voters probably don’t know, and need to know. I was heartened to read Elizabeth Edwards’ dismissal of the misleading radio ad that Obama is running in Iowa. Elizabeth Edwards tells it like it is! In “A Paucity of Hope (A ‘Mendacity of Hope’?),” I noted:
In “A Paucity of Hope (A ‘Mendacity of Hope’?, I quoted a New Republic piece, “The Delusional Style in American Punditry,” that exposed the “delusional” Boston Globe endorsement of Obama:
The Boston Globe, in an ideal specimen of the delusional style, ran an editorial that endorsed Obama because he is biracial and grew up in “multi-ethnic cultures”–adequate substitutes, by the editorial’s lights, for serious background and expertise in foreign affairs. Obama, according to the Globe, has engaged in “a search for identity” and taken “a roots pilgrimage to Kenya,” all of which supposedly displays a “level of introspection, honesty, and maturity” that the newspaper longs for in a president. “Obama’s story is America’s story,” the Globe intoned–a sentence that comes as close as any distinguished newspaper ever has to perfect emptiness.
Let us hold aside that the book the Globe relied on in discovering these singular Obamaesque virtues, Dreams From My Father, contains composite characters and other fictionalized elements–not exactly a portrait of sterling honesty or authenticity. What is especially delusional is the Globe’s confidence that its own projections about Obama’s character and personality, as well as the mystical conclusions it draws from his ethnicity, are serious grounds for endorsing any candidate for any office, much less the presidency. … (From “The Delusional Style in American Punditry.”)
Then there’s JedReport’s diary at Daily Kos in which he uses Paul Krugman’s even-handed critique of the deficiencies in Obama’s health plan, and how Obama is distorting the truth about Edwards’ and Clinton’s health plans: “Obama goes Harry and Louise: The audio.”
Taylor Marsh wrote up a extensively-researched, disturbing list of Obama’s embellishments and self-aggrandizements on Dec. 26, “Obama Iowa Win Biggest News in World History!.” From that list:
Then there is Mr. Obama’s force of, well, himself, according to who else, Barack Obama…
SLATE’S JOHN DICKERSON on OBAMA’s “Song of Myself”: “Obama’s reliance on his anti-war position invites stories that question whether he is inflating his courage. This creates a double risk: résumé inflation suggests both dishonesty and a lack of anything else to boast about…Self-confidence is now a warning sign for myopia, insulation, and the inability to accurately assess the world around you. In a speech containing 80 uses of the first-person pronoun, Obama did have one line of quasi-humility: “I am not a perfect man and I won’t be a perfect president.” [John Dickerson, "Song of Myself: How Much Room Does Obama Have to Boast?" 10/4/07]
OBAMA FALSELY CLAIMED THAT HE WAS A LAW PROFESSOR: In 2004, the Sun-Times reported that, “Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama’s primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.” In 2007, Obama was quoted in the AP saying, “‘I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution.” Obama is listed as a “Senior Lecturer in Law (on leave of absence),” not a law professor, on the University of Chicago law school web site. [Chicago Daily Herald, 3/8/04; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04; AP, 3/30/07; law.uchicago.edu]
OBAMA MAY HAVE CLAIMED TOO MUCH CREDIT IN COMMUNITY EFFORT TO REMOVE ASBESTOS FROM PUBLIC HOUSING: “Obama says he initiated and led efforts that thrust Altgeld’s asbestos problem into the headlines, pushing city officials to call hearings and a reluctant housing authority to start a cleanup… But others tell the story much differently. They say Obama did not play the singular role in the asbestos episode that he portrays in the best-selling memoir ‘Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.’ Credit for pushing officials to deal with the cancer-causing substance, according to interviews and news accounts from that period, also goes to a well-known preexisting group at Altgeld Gardens and to a local newspaper called the Chicago Reporter. Obama does not mention either one in his book.” [Los Angeles Times, 2/19/07]
The accumulative effect of the “audacity” of Sen. Obama’s embellishments is a “tell” about what the man is made of.
Democrats operate under the approach that their policy should address the best in everyone and find ways to make this part of policy.
Obama is campaigning to reach people in ways that highlight the worst in everyone.
Change is what George Bush brought in, a radical alteration of postmodern policy.
Don’t take my word for it, economist Paul Krugman can highlight these departures from proven ways of generating revenue, making capital solvent again, and adhering to market fundamentals as a way of insuring fairness in our exchange of value as a way to drive the economic engine forward.
Barack’s trying to use some voodoo lingo about “change” in America, but snake oil is what it is.
As for foreign policy, Colin Powell is whispering in Barack’s ear. Don’t ask him what their plans are and he don’t tell you how far past the event horizon he wants things to be pushed.
Any plan to stay in Iraq is a plan to fight Iran.
Four More Wars!
Not just a campaign rally cry in this day and age…
This was true from day one and anyone who thinks Bush had the intelligence and “forward” looking insights is in denial as to who is really running the freak show at 1600. It is not him.
Any plan to stay in Iraq is a plan to fight Iran.
Federal Judge Declares White House Visitor Records Subject to the FOIA in CREW Lawsuit
More at their link:
http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/30620
I am wondering which Judge will get this on appeal.It looks like the WH is shopping the case.
This means that the visitor logs for the
current 2 cases or is it a broad opinion / ruling?
I have not read her opinion yet. By some off chance we might infer who was at The Energy Task force besides Kenny Boy.
fwiw,
FactCheck.org has a history of right leaning pieces.
Cheney even referenced them during a debate.
One case comes up immediately on search engines, Media Matters had to fact check FactCheck.Org.
They were defending macaca Allen on the topic of underfunding necessary body armor.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200609220002
Sen.Landrieu even cites actual military assessments for the bill that was blocked by Republican Senators:
One reason may have been that it was drafted by Sen. Dodd.
The Dodd amendment included:
“…important high-tech body armor, bullet-proof helmets, special water packs to keep soldiers hydrated, and other survival gear.”
[...]
DODD: Now, in response to the Army’s request, the committee added $300 million to the present supplemental request which could be used for either this additional equipment or the clearance of weapons and mines still lingering on Iraqi battlefields.”
That is very crucial. Many metal pieces used to form the most crude versions of IFP are salvaged off abandoned military metals.
In fact, the Senate was given a choice, and Sen.Dodd argued on fulfillment of both needs as necessary security measures for troops well being in Iraq’s theater of combat:
Factcheck.org does not allow reader comments
Perhaps they changed the last line above…
A comment in the MM thread follows up several examples of equivolency aimed at making Kerry and Bush ad policy seem similar during the last race for President.
Cheney relied on mispresented information to claim equivolency, if I’m not mistaken he did as much on MTP as well.
The reason they admit as much, is to shape a narrative, the complicit media helps.
The following piece details why:
http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/decision-makers/
He then delves into the complexities of trying to win over voters numbed to variance or nuance in terms of making vote choices.
Equivolency taps this instinct. By blurring the policy difference it discourages turnout. See also Joe Lieberman.
Back to topic:
FactCheck has a shoddy consistency about it. It doesn’t change the fact Obama had some ethically challenged contributors, that coupled with some questionable advice positions and his own talking points indicate problems on the whole, but his policies appear to fall on the weight of their own assumptions.
Again, compare his tack with the line of argument presented by Paul Krugman.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/introducing-this-blog/
Check the graph. The distributive basis of our economy is returning to levels not witnessed since the days preceding the great stock market crash.
Playing on this background was another relative era of transitional scale economies and tech acceleration of worker effeciency. Wages did not rise with the effeciency enough to sustain the growth. Sound familiar?
Vote for Barack, you are operating under the assumptions of the Gilded age in many terms(health care, Social Security overhaul, colonial foreign policy). He’s made these radical statements of his own volition. Cloaking a return to days bygone as “change” when he’s essentially undermining the kind of institutional barriers and structure we’ve initiated to insure more broad and sustained long term economic health, lessons learned coming off history’s greatest crash.
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