RedPhoenixxx wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If you don't think Obama's speech was sufficient (as I don't), you're watching the media and thinking "Wow! They really shifted that story fast...".
Obviously, nothing short of Obama withdrawing from the race would be sufficient for you. How long were the media supposed to show the Wright clips on loop? Two weeks? A month? Six? How much more can you really say about, in total, 10 minutes of underwhelmingly controversial footage?
That's not the whole issue though. The problem is that the media has been shocking in it's failure to vet Obama in any way. Any other politician would never have gotten this far without the media having done story after story about all the questionable aspects of his political past and his political record. Certainly, they turned a blind eye to the Wright story for as long as they possibly could. Conservative pundits were talking about it a year ago. The blogosphere was talking about it 6 months ago (possibly longer as well, but it was significantly present for as much as 6 months prior to the news carrying the story). Heck. The Wright videos along with taglines saying "This is Obama's preacher", were on Youtube for 3 months (starting in Dec/Jan timeframe).
Is anyone seriously under the illusion that a story practically thrown in the public eye would have taken this long to ever appear on your evening news if it was any other candidate? The media normally is almost ravenous about how it pursues any hint of scandal for any politician, doubly so for someone running for office, and 10 times more when that person is running for president. Why did they wait so long? It's not hard to conclude that when it comes to Obama, the media is essentially putting its hands over it's eyes and it's fingers in its ears and singing "la la la!" as loudly as it can so it can avoid having to write or tell any negative stories about him.
It's not just about Wright. Obama has a whole string of things about him, that if he were any other candidate would be connected together without any delay. I've already touched on many of these. In a campaign where the media jumps all over Clinton's embellishment of something she did 12 years ago is discussed, analyzed, and contextualized endlessly, it's startling that they don't seem to be able to put one plus one together for Obama. No one in the media has called Obama on his claim that he's a unifier by looking at his voting record and noting that he's got the most liberal record in the senate? No one? Isn't that "embellishment" as well? Heck. It's an outright lie, and something the voting public ought to know about. He's in favor of complete bans on handguns. He's got a 100% rating from planned parenthood. Not exactly stances likely to "end partisanship", is it?
He sells himself as something he's not. The Wright thing is just another example of this. He says he's above race, yet he's attended a radial black liberation theology church for 20 years. Yet another fact from his life that contradicts the picture he paints to the public in his campaign.
These are things that the public has a right to know. This is the kind of political analysis that the media is *supposed* to conduct. But for some reason, they're not doing it. We can speculate as to why, but it's abundantly clear that they're not. Obama is running on a lie. Plain and simple. The public is supporting him because they think he's something he's not (at least some of them anyway). I've touched on the "vagueness" of stated reasons for supporting Obama before, and this is just more of the same sort of thing. Barring a media actually investigating who a candidate is and what he really stands for, the public largely just has "buzz" to go on. They're allowed to imagine him as whatever ideal candidate they'd like him to be and that false impression is never challenged.
The media has blatantly and sadly failed at its job. Some of us are painfully aware of this. Sadly, most of the population is oblivious because their only source of information is the very media outlets that aren't doing any sort of proper coverage of Obama. And even when they're forced to cover a negative story about him, they seem to just skim the surface rather then digging for the incredibly obvious facts that are right there for them to see.
The whole picture of Obama in muslim dress is a great example of this. That wasn't the whole story. It was an easy story to cover though, since it was so easy to paint anyone talking about it in a negative light (and certainly some idiots did think it was just about what he was wearing). The real story was entirely ignored. It was about what he did in Kenya in 2006. Something that I'm betting almost none of you have heard about.
Google "Obama" and "Odinga" and read. Heck. Just read
this page to get a quick primer if you want...
We can debate the significance of Odinga's actions, and Obama's support. But isn't it stunning that there hasn't even been a peep about this? A candidate for president (and active member of the US senate) actively campaigns for a presidential candidate in a foreign country, lending money and support, and no one's heard of it, or about who he supported? It's a questionable act regardless, but when you realize just how questionable the guy he supported is, it's jaw-droppingly amazing that this hasn't been reported in any way at all...
Wright is literally just the tip of the iceberg.