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: West Neanderthal Drive

Is it OK for a candidate for President of the United States to associate with racists, felons and America-Haters?

Newsbusters.org thinks the Associated Press thinks so:

The AP Style Guide on Defending Barack Obama

By Terry Trippany | March 15, 2008 - 11:21 ET

The Associated Press editors tasked in-house "writer" Phillip Elliott to write an article that dispels the "rumors and outright lies" concerning Barack Obama and the perception that Mr. Obama's support of Israel is questionable. The product of that task is what you'd expect from any number of left leaning story tellers in the mainstream media who write about Obama as opposed to journalists, reporters and political observers that actually take the time to research, study and honestly discuss that which they have found.

Elliott took no time setting up the Obama defense from the first sentence, stating that "Barack Obama has a solid Senate record in support of Israel". The rest of the article is essentially an exercise in repetition; repackaging the most often repeated excuses in defense of a man that inexplicably spent 20 years in a church listening to the controversial and dogmatic sermons of his pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright honored noted Jew hater Louis Farrakhan and traveled with the Nation of Islam leader to visit Libya's Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. You know Qadhafi, he's the megalomaniacal leader of Libya that instituted Sharia Law and expelled most all the Jews from his country while simultaneously destroying all their cemeteries. A real humanitarian and man of the people, IN HELL!

The whole thing lives here.
What impresses us about this debate is how much it reminds us of the time Jayson Blair got caught making stuff up at the New York Times. Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia anyone can edit) tells us:

Blair's editor, Jonathan Landman, told the Siegal committee he felt the fact that Blair was African-American played a large part in his initial promotion to full-time staffer. "I think race was the decisive factor in his promotion," he said. "I thought then and I think now that it was the wrong decision."^[15] Newsweek reporter Seth Mnookin similarly believes that Blair was fast-tracked because of the Times's desire for a more diverse workforce. On May 14, 2003, while he was still Times executive editor, Raines (who is white) acknowledged at a massive meeting of Times news staffers, managers, and its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., that Blair had gotten the breaks he had enjoyed because of his race.

Could be true, for all we know. Of course, these guys have a habit of, as we say, making stuff up. But the connection seems pretty clear to us. race and class hatred is ingrained in the journalism elite to the point that they will do everything possible to see that a black man is President just to prove to themselves that they aren't racists.
Of course, this begs the question of whether a black man could get elected President on his own merits, without their relentless sandbagging. Something about the racism of low expectations, maybe. Or maybe it's just some kind of bizarre death wish that makes people think that because they both hate George W. Bush, they'll get a better deal as women, homosexuals, Jews, Christians, what-have-you, from the Islamo-fruitcake element.
On the other hand, this is the kind of behavior that cuts across the political spectrum. Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, as been guilty of similar shortsightedness on the topic of abortion, which is apparently going to cause him to stay home come November, effectively ceding the White House to whoever comes out on top in Denver.
We are at a point now where it is no longer permitted to speak the middle name of a man running for the highest office in the country. Likewise, his associates are beyond criticism, as are his uniformly goofy ideas for the country. Does anyone think the debate will become more free and open during an Obama Administration? We don't.
Incidentally, lest anyone think Rev. Jeremiah Wright is representative of black pastors, we sugest these gentlemen as worth visiting:
Tony Evans.
Paul Sheppard.
Crawford Loritts.
Michael Youssef (an Egyptian, but Egypt is in Africa).

Full post as published by West Neanderthal Drive on March 16, 2008 (boomark / email).