Comments on: How can Obama defend himself over terrorist slur?

By: Political Costume Designer

Political Costume Designer — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:46:36 +0000

The newspaper article makes the writers for WP look worse. Spreading rumors is not journalism.

By: Ellee

Ellee — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:39:20 +0000

I share the same concerns as Cesca that focusing on claims that Obama is a Muslim, knowing it is harmful and damaging to his reputation, could be defamatory. I guess he has to keep denying it. Cesca is convinced it is a part of a dirty tricks campaign and the media should distance itself from this.

By: Lord Nazh

Lord Nazh — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:20:07 +0000

Sue? What part of free speech do you promote then?

He could sue for libel… if they accused him of something that was not true (and it harmed him, although his ‘public’ persona may invalidate that), but there is nothing non-’factual’ that WP claims about Obama.

If you want to claim the rumors are untrue, then that’s good, they are untrue as far as anyone knows, but to report on a rumor (or rumors) is still reporting, not slandering

By: Welshcakes Limoncello

Welshcakes Limoncello — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:38:41 +0000

Ellee, I followed the WP link and I cannot see anything he could sue about. It does not accuse him of being a Muslim or Muslim extremist; it merely reports rumours – damaging I grant you. The second article is from something called “The Post” – not the WP – I can’t figure out what it is. Surely if he were going to sue he would have to go to the source?

By: The Curmudgeon

The Curmudgeon — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:06:17 +0000

Image consultant — the Washington Post is anything but a ‘Republican-leaning’ entity — and hasn’t been since before it broke the Watergate story… and that was 34 years ago.

Ellee, here’s what Rich Miller said this morning in the Capitol Fax Blog (a blog devoted to Illinois politics) about the Obama story:

* Meanwhile, in yet another clear example of the utter disgrace that is our national political media, the Washington Post ran a story yesterday that mentioned just about every single “Barack Obama is a Muslim�? rumor without once noting that the rumor is completely false, except to print some denials from Obama’s campaign.

* The Sun-Times, on the other hand, took the journalistic route on one of Obama’s claimed strengths: Ethics…

[quoting from the Sun-Times story this morning]

Seven years ago, Sen. Barack Obama was on the board of a Chicago charity when his former boss, Allison S. Davis, came looking for money.

At the time, Davis was a developer represented by the law firm where Obama worked, as well as a small contributor to Obama’s political campaign funds. He wanted the charity to help fund his plans to build housing for low-income Chicagoans.

Obama agreed. He voted with other directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago to invest $1 million with Neighborhood Rejuvenation Partners L.P., a $17 million partnership that Davis still operates.

It’s not clear whether Obama told other board members of his ties to Davis, whose family would go on to donate more than $25,000 to Obama’s political campaigns, including his bid to be president of the United States.

“Let me get back to you on that,�? Obama presidential campaign spokesman Bill Burton said when asked about that two weeks ago. He never did.

By: image consultant

image consultant — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:18:02 +0000

One aspect of our following blogs like this is that we’re reading less newspapers…
In a diminishing market newspapers have to cut costs whilst maintaining as much ad revenue as they can.
In the states this has meant that newspapers (even the handful with a good reputation) have cut back on investigative journalism, more expensive – less return, whilst maintaining, lower cost – higher ad value, fashion journalists.
Media in the US is also, predominately, owned by republican leaning people which might have a connection to Obama being rateffed by the WP!