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June 19, 2013
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GOP's Anti-Jeremiah Wright Strategy 'Incendiary, Racially Tinged'....But Wright Himself Isn't?

By Clay Waters | May 17, 2012 | 18:42

A  A

Thursday's New York Times off-lead by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg was intended to cause heartburn for the Mitt Romney camp: "G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighing A Hard-Line Attack on Obama."

The ad strategy, which was aborted after the Times ran with it on Thursday's front page, would have emphasized Obama's controversial Chicago pastor, the racially inflammatory Jeremiah Wright. But the Times as usual described Rev. Wright's anti-white jeremiads in bland terms, burying Wright's 9-11 quote that the attack was “America’s chickens are coming home to roost," and left out his notorious "God damn America!" rant completely. That distanced approach matches the paper's reluctant Wright coverage during the 2008 campaign.

Zeleny and Rutenberg wrote:

A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.

The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”

Another significant caveat was downplayed in paragraph 11:

The document makes clear that the effort is only in the planning stages and awaiting full approval from Mr. Ricketts. People involved in the planning said the publicity now certain to surround it could send the strategists back to the drawing board.

But it serves as a rare, detailed look at the birth of the sort of political sneak attack that has traditionally been hatched in the shadows and has become a staple of presidential politics.

Only in the fourth-to-last paragraph was Wright actually quoted:

The plan is designed for maximum impact, far beyond a typical $10 million television advertising campaign. It calls for full-page newspaper advertisements featuring a comment Mr. Wright made the Sunday after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “America’s chickens are coming home to roost,” he said.

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

Not content to criticize the strategy on political grounds, reporter Jonathan Weisman played the race card in a followup blog post Thursday, "McCain Rejects Racially Tinged Attack on Obama." So it wasn't Rev. Wright who made "racially tinged" attacks, only GOP strategists?

Senator John McCain, who refused to make President Obama’s association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright an issue during his 2008 presidential campaign, repudiated a proposal by Republican strategists to “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do” -- open an incendiary, racially tinged attack on the president.
 

About the Author

Clay Waters is the director of Times Watch, an MRC project tracking the New York Times. Click here to follow Clay Waters on Twitter.
  • Racism
  • 2012 Presidential
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Comments

What's Fair for Romney....

Submitted by Samaritan01 on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 9:19pm.

....Clearly MUST be fair for Obama. Obama can lie about Romney's teenage behavior however Romney supporters must never repeat to words of Obama's mentor and surrogate-father.

Obviously the democrats aren't seeking fairness and equality on THIS issue.

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Romney's Strategy for Losing the Election

Submitted by berlet98 on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 2:39am.

Romney's Strategy for Losing the Election

With Barack Hussein Obama’s candidacy on the ropes thanks mainly to his ineptness and far-out ideology, Mitt Romney could very well be America’s next president if he really wanted to be.

Apparently, he doesn’t.

Our economy is stuck in the doldrums, the unemployment rate stands at 8.1%, Obama’s “evolution” on homosexuals marrying other homosexuals alienated what remained of his support among Christians and other traditionalists, and now it’s been reported that his former literary agent said he was “born in Kenya” and his old spiritual adviser has ratted him out.

Had Mitt Romney written the script for his becoming the 45th president of the United States, he couldn’t have done any better.

Yet, Romney is on the verge of blowing it by taking the high road, the same road to ignominious defeat travelled by Sen. John McCain in 2008.

Four years ago, McCain opted against winning the presidency by telling it like it is about the character of his Democrat opponent and instead ran an ultra-principled race devoid of any references to Obama’s character or his toxic past.

He thereby removed the most potent evidence that the junior senator from Illinois was an extremist who would cause great harm to the country. That evidence, combined with Obama’s lack of experience, qualifications, and moral rectitude, could have resulted in an implosion of the presumptuous Obama campaign and given the U.S. a war hero and seasoned statesman as president in lieu of a “neighborhood organizer.”

McCain chose to ignore Obama’s tainted background, his close associations with extremist domestic terrorists such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and his 20 years in sitting in the pews of black racist Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright’s Trinity United Church while Wright spewed his hateful venom against white people and our country.

McCain lost, America lost, and the United States was saddled with the most left wing, most divisive, most incompetent, most pro-abortion, and the most disastrous leader in our history, Jimmy Carter not excepted.

2012 is shaping up to be what Yogi would have called déjà vu all over again. . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=24134.)

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I agree 100%

Submitted by Bliggie on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 10:18am.

I went to the NYT link yesterday through Drudge and the whining and complaining from the leftists on there was laughable. They kept going on and on about "rich guys taking over politics" and "this was over in 2008" and "this is nasty/dirty politics" and lastly the best communist/socialist argument when they can't debate facts, "it's obvious they are attacking Obama because he is black, and they even use his middle name!". The hypocrisy from those people is almost unbelievable. The fake rev wright IS RELEVANT because any person that associates with racist hate groups should not even be considered for POTUS. And I told the libs on there if they can't take it, don't dish it out.

"Fear Is The Mind Killer"
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And it's about time!

Submitted by Bliggie on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 12:30pm.

That the GOP took the gloves off and gave the leftist Dem party a taste of their own medicine. The elite media is not going to like or be fair to any Republican or conservative candidate no matter what. It makes me angry that these people caved and wouldn't go ahead with this. I'm sick and tired of spineless politicians who think they will be liked if they play nice to libs. And it's also funny that anytime the Dems attack Republicans and try to destroy their families it's just "politics" but when GOP politicians question or criticize its "hard line" or "heated rhetoric", I think the American people are tired of it and if the REPUBS would only take them to task, they would get our support.

"Fear Is The Mind Killer"
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Geez, I had been exhorting the Dems to take the gloves off

Submitted by Jer on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 12:42pm.

for the past fifty years. The Repubs--from Murray Chotiner, to Chuch Colson, to Lee Atwater, to Floyd Brown, and other master journeymen along the political low road--have been smacking the Dems around for as long as I can remember. No way they can be matched. They wrote the book on the art of the smear. But maybe imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

Jer

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Yea you're right

Submitted by Bliggie on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 5:57pm.

I mean it's not like the media dug up a 50 year old high school story of Romney for Obama and the Dems and it's not like the elite MSM attacked Romney and a GOP superpac ad that doesnt even exist, the one talking about Hussein Obama's past with known racists terrorists and other anti Americans, you know liberals. Hey wait a minute, the DNC media and the DEMS did do that. And talk about smearing? We won't even talk about how leftists disrespected GW Bush, and yet the hypocrites get up in arms when they even suspect someone will attack them in the way they attack conservatives and their families. The truth is we don't care about a leftist double standard, you and your peeps aren't setting the tone anymore. We want our candidates to confront and criticize Obama and the Dems on all fronts. It's typical though, that's why I think liberals and jihadists have such a love and respect for one another, the most intolerant people demand the most tolerance.

"Fear Is The Mind Killer"
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Jer and his peeps. Too ---

Submitted by matthewdean on Fri, 05/18/2012 - 11:30pm.

funny.

MD

"The credibility of the story is undermined by the selection of sources." - (h/t Jer)
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Nice try, Bliggie...

Submitted by Jer on Sat, 05/19/2012 - 5:53pm.

The current lib administration has such "love and respect for jihadists" that it has been wiping Al Qaeda off the face of the earth in unprecedented fashion. Another impressive display of the right"s "logic".

Jer

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Yeah, that Obama administration is just ---

Submitted by matthewdean on Sat, 05/19/2012 - 8:20pm.

sooooo impressive.

MD

"The credibility of the story is undermined by the selection of sources." - (h/t Jer)
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Race War and the P.C. Media

Submitted by berlet98 on Sat, 05/19/2012 - 5:55pm.

Race War and the P.C. Media

DrudgeReport.com’s Friday headline, “Race Related Hate Crimes Up, Coincide with Obama Presidency”, seemed to confirm what most people who follow the news already knew, that since the election of Barack Hussein Obama, incidents of blacks attacking whites had increased wildly, maybe exponentially.

Not so.

First of all, it’s difficult to determine numbers since the MSM rarely notes the race of the alleged criminals, a description that could aid in their apprehension. Secondly, much of the media don’t bother to report black racist crimes at all.

In any event, the linked article from ABCNews referred to the reaction of “white supremacist groups” to Obama’s presidency, not to the proliferation of black violence.

Indeed, ABC never saw fit to mention that proliferation, instead focusing exclusively on the increase in the number of white militias–from 150 to 1,274 over three years–who are incensed over “changes in demographics” and resort to violence, while never citing a single instance of that violence. (http://abcn.ws/LjAC3H)

Correction: “what most people who follow the news already knew” should read, “what most people are oblivious of” since the mainstream media, often with the complicity of law enforcement, has long been engaged in a concerted effort to conceal the extent of black hate crimes.

There are various reasons for the MSM’s failure to fulfill their fundamental journalistic responsibilities to the public of reporting news objectively and honestly.

Some in the media claim they are striving to avoid stirring up dissension, although they had no problem distorting facts related to the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case and causing nationwide upheavals with their proven misrepresentations.

Others claim black on white crime isn’t inspired by hatred of Caucasians but by poverty and discrimination which, in turn, somehow inspires blacks to attack whites in droves even though worse poverty and discrimination existed years ago and didn’t effect the mayhem we see today.

What most of the lamestreamers won’t admit is that they tailor much of the news to benefit Democrats and, especially, Barack Obama.

Featuring story after story involving black people assaulting, robbing, maiming, and murdering white people might awaken Americans to the reality that there is a one-sided race war in progress in America which could negatively impact Obama’s re-election chances.

Of course, First Lady Michelle Obama is on record as saying that every negative critique of her husband must incorporate a racist component, an odd opinion in light of Obama’s proclamation of a “post-racial America”, and an opinion that puts a damper on any implied criticism and automatically labels the critic a racist.

Lady O’s tactic is a variation on the theory that a great offense trumps any defense.

Noted African-American economist/philosopher/professor/prolific author Thomas Sowell is a keen observer of social trends in the United States. He is also fully cognizant of our race war and often goes on the offensive to illustrate the perils of that ongoing conflict. . .

(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=24164.)

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