“Shameful”?
- 04.18.2008 - 11:45 AMIn an article today, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post cites various media figures–from Tom Shales of the Post to Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher to Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann–who are outraged at the performance of George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson during Wednesday’s Democratic debate. The ABC News duo’s performance, we are told, was “despicable,” “shameful,” and “disgraced democracy itself.”
And what did Stephanopoulos and Gibson do to earn this scorn? Why, they asked Barack Obama some probing questions, including one about his past relationships with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. and a former leader of the Weather Underground, William Ayers.
Consider this thought experiment: Assume that a conservative candidate for the GOP nomination spent two decades at a church whose senior pastor was a white supremacist who uttered ugly racial (as well as anti-American) epithets from the pulpit. Assume, too, that this minister wasn’t just the candidate’s pastor but also a close friend, the man who married the candidate and his wife, baptized his two daughters, and inspired the title of his best-selling book.
In addition, assume that this GOP candidate, in preparing for his entry into politics, attended an early organizing meeting at the home of a man who, years before, was involved in blowing up multiple abortion clinics and today was unrepentant, stating his wish that he had bombed even more clinics. And let’s say that the GOP candidate’s press spokesman described the relationship between the two men as “friendly.”
Do you think that if those moderating a debate asked the GOP candidate about these relationships for the first time, after 22 previous debates had been held, that other journalists would become apoplectic at the moderators for merely asking about the relationships? Not only would there be a near-universal consensus that those questions should be asked; there would be a moral urgency in pressing for answers. We would, I predict, be seeing an unprecedented media “feeding frenzy.”
The truth is that a close relationship with a white supremacist pastor and a friendly relationship with an abortion clinic bomber would, by themselves, torpedo a conservative candidate running for president. There is an enormous double standard at play here, one rooted in the fawning regard many journalists have for Barack Obama. They have a deep, even emotional, investment in his candidacy. And, as we are seeing, they will turn on anyone, even their colleagues, who dare raise appropriate and searching questions–the kind journalists are supposed to ask. The reaction to Stephanopoulos and Gibson is a revealing and depressing glimpse into the state of modern journalism.
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April 18th, 2008 at 12:09 PM
The insularity of those commentators does not allow them to understand this obvious point.
Also, to them, a Black who associates with bigots, anti-Americans, anti-Semites, Marxists, and unrepentant terrorists is fine–as long as that Black has the “right” politics–as they hold Blacks to a different standard than they hold themselves (i.e., Whites).
Reference Trent Lott’s milquetoast comment about Strom Thurmond and the uproar it caused and compare it to the orders-of-magnitude more serious implications by Obama’s statements and past associations.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:17 PM
… “fawning regard” sounds a bit too mild. Why not say it’s true love, the kind associated with blindness? At the least this demonstrates that BHO’s appeal is not to reason.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:44 PM
“The truth is that a close relationship with a white supremacist pastor and a friendly relationship with an abortion clinic bomber would, by themselves, torpedo a conservative candidate running for president.”
No doubt such a candidate would see his campaign torpedoed. I would add that the vast majority of conservatives think such a candidate SHOULD see his campaign blow up. And that’s but one fact which seperates us from them.
btw…Has Obama brought Hillary’s past association with the Black Panthers? If so, I’ve missed it.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:22 PM
These jackasses think of Obama as a MESSIAH when in fact he’s only a MESS
April 18th, 2008 at 8:05 PM
JohnE,
I doubt he is that foolish, considering his Illinois senate office had on staff members of the Black Panthers and only recently removed from the official Obama campaign website an endorsement from the Black Panthers.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:02 PM
[…] Wehner explores some of the vitriol leveled at ABC and the two moderators of the last Democrat debate and doesn’t like the double […]
April 18th, 2008 at 10:19 PM
[…] “Shameful”? […]
April 19th, 2008 at 12:38 AM
“There is an enormous double standard at play here, one rooted in the fawning regard many journalists have for Barack Obama.”
It goes farther, I think. Many in the Democratic Party (including fellow travelers in the news media) agree with Bill Ayers — the unreconstructed bomber — and Jeremiah Wright — the unhinged purveyor of vicious lies such as his claim that the government invented AIDS to kill black people.
They seem to know that their views of reality and appropriate behavior are not accepted by the majority, so they are angry that the questions posed in the debate may tend to get people thinking about the character and beliefs of their idol.
It’s too bad they don’t change their beliefs and join the mainstream. Then, we could have a competitive two-party system in which we don’t need to wonder (or fear) just what the Democrats’ potential nominee has in mind when he says he wants to bring “change” to America.
April 19th, 2008 at 1:49 PM
[…] at their candidate being asked about his friendships with a racist and a terrorist, Peter Wehner proposes a hypothetical: Assume that a conservative candidate for the GOP nomination spent two decades at a church whose […]
April 19th, 2008 at 2:50 PM
Do you people really believe the drivil about Obama or is this just another furtile attempt to keep the least honest/viable candidate in the race. This is my first time on this blog and the scope of venal screed is without compare. Do any of the readers compare the truth to what they want to think/write?
Strange the willfull disregard for information and not political slur. Goood luck