Time's Klein: Can't Blame Obama for Not Rebuking 'Father Figure' Wrigh
Applauding Barack Obama's March 18 speech, Time's Joe Klein (file photo at right) argued that most people will understand why the Illinois senator could not throw his pastor under the bus, even as Klein applauded the fact that Obama made his grandmother a speedbump on the bus ride to the Denver convention (emphasis mine):The part about his grandmother is the real payoff, though: I'd say that most…
What Obama Should Have Said About Wright and Race
Despite the glowing praise from supposedly impartial press representatives across the fruited plain, March 18, 2008 could go down in history as the day Barack Obama destroyed his chances of becoming the first black President of the United States. Americans shouldn't be fooled by all the predictable fawning from the usual suspects in the mainstream media, for this was not a shining moment…
Greenfield: Obama Failed By Not Disassociating From 'Crackpot
Like so many of his colleagues, Jeff Greenfield comes to the MSM from a background in Dem politics, having served as a speechwriter for RFK. But more than most, the CBS senior political correspondent demonstrates an ability to put partisanship aside in his analyses. Witness Greenfields's comments on this morning's Early Show regarding Barack Obama's speech on race on this morning's Early Show.…
Jesse Jackson: Obama's Grandmother
Playing the moral equivalence card in his speech this morning, Barack Obama said this:I can no more disown [Rev. Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her…
CBS’s Mitchell: How Does Obama ‘Not Denounce Jeremiah Wright
Following Monday’s sanitized coverage of the controversial comments of Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show" continued to gloss over the most inflammatory of Wright’s comments, spending over 6 minutes on Obama’s upcoming speech on the issue while devoting only 16 seconds of video to Wright’s more mild statements. Following this video, co-host Russ Mitchell…
We Still Don't Know If Obama Told The Truth on March 14th
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. -- Barack Obama, Huffington Post, March 14, 2008The key question before Barack Obama today was the one going to his integrity: was he was telling the truth when he claimed in his HuffPo piece of…
ABC's Roberts Fawns Over Heart-Warming Clinton Charity
"Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts interviewed Bill Clinton for nine minutes over two segments on Monday and somehow managed to avoid discussing the disgraced Eliot Spitzer and controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Instead, GMA again featured another positive look at the Clinton Global initiative and its plan to fight poverty and get young people involved. Roberts gushed, "It's got to…
CBS ‘Early Show’ Discusses Obama’s Pastor, No Mention of Most Co
On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," a total of over 13 minutes of coverage was given to the controversy involving comments of Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but only 16 seconds was given to play video of Wright’s comments, video which did not include some of the Reverend’s most shocking comments that September 11 was caused by U.S. foreign policy or that the AIDS virus was part of a government…
CBS Has Barack's Back: Wright's Words Compared to Those of Jesus
The Early Show did its best this morning to help Barack Obama climb out of the hole he's dug for himself with his close association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a set-up segment, CBS's Dean Reynolds rhetorically asked: "the question is whether the rhetoric is so remarkable, because in African-American churches pastors often seek to rouse their congregants to self-reliance by speaking harshly…
Blogger Patterico Calls Out LA Times Coverage of Obama-Wright
Lead Los Angeles Times scold Patrick Frey, aka Patterico, ripped into the Times's Saturday story on Barack Obama and the sermons of Trinity United Church of Christ Pastor Jeremiah Wright, giving us yet another reason to be thankful for New Media:Patterico accurately notes the following (bold and italics are in original):(The Times) downplays the 20-year relationship Obama has had with the pastor…
NYT's Cohen: Barack's 'Grown Beyond' Wright
One set of facts, two diametrically different NYT op-eds addressing it this morning. The fact: that Barack Obama is backpedaling as fast as he can away from the hateful anti-American rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright. The op-eds: Bill Kristol's, offering a dose of sobering realism about Obama's feet that if not of clay, then are certainly those of a garden-variety politician. And then there's Roger…
Saturday Night Live: 'McCain is Crazy Old,' 'Black Is the New Presiden
NBC's "Saturday Night Live" continued its political activism disguised as satire on March 15, this time choosing to make the case for Barack Obama while doing an entire sketch about John McCain being "crazy old."During Saturday's "Weekend Update," former SNLer, and current "30 Rock" co-star Tracy Morgan, stumped for Obama, and did so quite comically (embedded right).In the defining moment,…