McCain is running on his foreign policy credentials. Clinton is running on her readiness on day one/commander-in-chief credentials. McCain?s questionable grasp of the fundamentals in the Middle East (or, if you consider Todd?s even more disturbing ?truncated talking point? theory, his effort to purposely blur these fundamentals?Shiite, Sunni, Al Qaeda, Iranians, all the same?in the minds of the American electorate) is at least as urgent or ?pounce?-worthy (dare I suggest more so, particularly in light of recent developments?) as Clinton exaggerating an account of a trip she took a dozen years ago. And by the way, which is it? Did McCain have a senior moment(s) or is he deliberately ?blurring? two groups? Shouldn?t reporters push for a clarification of that?
Of the reporters who have copped to Todd?s the media will let McCain get away with it mentality, perhaps most disturbing was Susan Page of USA Today who on MSNBC went so far as to offer a (feeble) excuse for McCain: ?Most Americans can?t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either.?
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/whats_good_for_the_goose.php[][][][][][][][[][][][][][][]][][]][]][
?I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps and the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn?t leave the house for six months?Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren?t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain,? he said
The story was quickly picked up in the conservative blogosphere, which picked apart Obama?s story. His mother was an only child. The Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz. This afternoon, the RNC emailed a statement out to reporters. ?Barack Obama?s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there?s no way Obama?s statement yesterday can be true.?
So what?s the deal?
Obama?s maternal grandmother?s brother, Charlie Payne, served with the 89th Infantry Division that liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. ?Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically,? an Obama spokesman said in a statement.
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/05/27/obama-camp-admits-misspeak/[][][][][][][][][][][][]
Quote:
Originally Posted by
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/In an interview with ?USA Today?, Mrs Clinton said: ?There was just an AP article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again and how the whites in both states [North Carolina and Indiana] who had not completed college were supporting me.?
What does she mean by this? It seems like she is talking about blue-collar whites supporting her, but some have construed this as implying that blacks aren't hardworking. I think it's an unfortunate choice of words, like Obama's "guns and religion" comment. I don't perceive the Clintons as racist by any means, but I get a sense that alot of their campaign's rhetorical choices have a tendency to pander to the unspoken prejudices of middle America. They are smart enough to mince words with an anticipation of how their comments will be received, and it seems to me that they are opting to take a low and cynical road.
http://forums.thestranger.com/showthread.php?t=17293[[]][][][[][[][[[][[][][[][][[][[]][[][][][]
A perfect depiction of the witty remark from George Costanza from Seinfeld fame: ?It?s not a lie if you believe it?.
Senator Clinton claims to have ?misspoken? because she was sleep-deprived. To believe that claim, one would also have to believe that Hillary is ?sleep-deprived? almost every time she gives a speech on her foreign policy experience. Why? Simply because that story has been repeated time and over again, in reference to her experience, in various campaign speeches.
http://en.afrik.com/article12955.html[][][][][][][][][][][]
-- for attendees at a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama described small town Pennsylvanians who "fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
The Huffington Post first reported the story; you can listen to the audio here.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/04/mccain-clinton.html