Obama Rejects Ed Schultz Event Outburst: McCain a 'Warmonger'

Remember the brouhaha the liberal media made out of Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham mocking "Barack Hussein Obama" at a McCain fundraiser, which McCain quickly rejected? Now the same thing (only bigger) has happened on the left. Radio Equalizer reports that at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Fargo on Friday that Obama later addressed, nationally syndicated liberal talk show host Ed Schultz slammed John McCain as a "warmonger." On Saturday, the Obama campaign repudiated the comment. But will the same networks that played up the Cunningham remarks (say, CNN) have the same fervor for the Obama-punts-Schultz story?

The Equalizer expects flying fur on the left: "While Obama is clearly looking to the general election and what will be expected of him, this is likely to go over about as well with the left as the suspension of Randi Rhodes by Air America. Don't expect Schultz to let this go without a fight."

It will make Monday's Schultz show worth sampling. From AP, which had the decency to employ the L word to describe Ed:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign on Saturday repudiated a liberal talk show host's description of Sen. John McCain as a warmonger, a comment made to an audience that Obama later addressed.

Ed Schultz, host of a nationally syndicated radio program that is based in Fargo, N.D., was warming up the crowd Friday at a $100-a-person fundraiser for the North Dakota Democratic party in Grand Forks when he tagged the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting as a "warmonger," Schultz acknowledged in a telephone interview Saturday.

He said he has used the term many times on the air to refer to McCain because of his support for the war in Iraq.

"He voted for this war. He's a perpetrator of the war. He's an advocate of the war," Schultz said. "In my personal definition, that's a warmonger."

Obama was not in the room when Schultz spoke. The candidate spoke after a series of introductions by the state's three Democrats in Congress.

Obama thanked Schultz and called him "the voice of progressive radio."

The Equalizer wrote that The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reported that McCain was quick to demand apologies:

Sen. John McCain called on potential fall rival Sen. Barack Obama to condemn comments made in a Democratic party fundraiser in North Dakota on Friday night where liberal radio talk show host, Ed Schultz, called Mr. McCain a “warmonger.”

After he was introduced, Mr. Obama thanked Mr. Schultz and called him the voice of progressive radio.

“It’s a free country and we have freedom of speech in America and Mr. Schultz is entitled to his views. I would hope that in keeping with his commitment that … Sen. Obama would condemn such language since it was part of his campaign,” Mr. McCain told reporters in Prescott, Ariz. “That kind of thing I don’t think is necessary at all in this campaign. I’ve made very clear how I feel about war and my experiences with it.”

Left unsaid was that, unlike Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain does not allow reporters into his fundraisers so the press does not know what supporters may be saying to the crowds there.