Out To Launch
The LA Times recently wrote there was "no recorded basis" for the claim that Barack Obama launched his political career in Bill Ayer's living room. After they received recorded basis for the claim, they moved the goalposts, saying no correcton was necessary since the new information (created by a pro-Obama source who later tried to hide it when it became embarrassing) didn't prove the claim.
Beyond the specifics of where and when Obama "launched" his political career, the whole trouble with this is the sin of omission. When Obama and Obama supporters deny this launching party, they don't generally follow it with "but he was introduced early in his political campaign to a lot of new faces at Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn's place." Instead, they basically try to give the impression there was no meet-and-greet at Bill and Bernardine's, and that these two didn't think of lot of Barack and weren't interested in launching his career.
I don't think people should make too much of this connection. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't get the facts.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:12 AM
7 Comments:
I guess I'll just have to dislike the guy on general principles, then.
The link of "recorded confirmatin" doesn't seem to go anywhere. I'd like to see it if you can correct it.
For some reason the original link no longer works. Here's another place you can for the same information:
http://www.blogowogo.com/blog_article.php?aid=1756147&t=11
Hey, this is a blog too. So if I post an entry saying "I met Barack Obama at a meeting of the International Socialist Organization. He was wearing a Che tee shirt and had a Black Panther temporary tattoo," the LA Times will have to post a retraction of their failure to post a retraction. The power of this medium is awesome to behold.
This is not something that came out of nowhere. This was direct eyewitness testimony from a person making an adverse admission. Furthermore, this meeting is KNOWN to have happened without this evidence, and was witnessed and discussed by quite a few people. Obama's people have even discussed it and tried to claim that Ayers didn't set it up, though the woman they say did set it up claims it wasn't her doing.
The only issue here is whether this "launched" his political career or whether it was just one in a series of events that launched his political career. But both the LA Times and Obama forces are doing what they can to muddy the waters and give the impression nothing was happening.
The eyewitness testimony was made years ago by the person who attended the event. There was simply no reason to make it up. However, there was reason to erase it. Luckily, it was captured before it went down the memory hole.
Well, as usual, the "cover-up" is far worse than the "crime" -- here, because it feeds the imagination. I wish he had just told the story, in full detail, two years ago. Not that I have any faith whatsoever that doing so would have won anyone over who gives two cents about this story. The narrative would have been "blatantly palling around with terrorists" instead of "hiding the fact that he's palling around with terrorists." But rather just because I have a (naive) wish to hear more about substantive issues than things I see as trivial at best. As to that last point, I found the silence here quite surprising.
Post a Comment
<< Home