Ten Tough Questions the Press Hasn’t Asked Obama (Video Update)
John on September 15, 2008 at 11:22 am
The MSM has examined itself and found no wrongdoing in its aggressive questioning of Sarah Palin. Questions about her children, her church, her political adversaries, etc. It’s all business as usual.
Well I support tough questions. I just don’t think the playing field has been entirely level in this regard. So here are the ten tough questions the press hasn’t asked Barack Obama over the last 18 months:
- What do you consider your greatest legislative achievement during your time in the US Senate?
- After requesting nearly a billion dollars in earmarks in your three years in the Senate, you reversed course recently and signed a moratorium against earmarks. Was this just a political calculation on your part?
- After the Democratic convention, you sharply revised your economic plan, dropping one $10 billion fund you had proposed just a few months earlier and eliminating another $10 billion initiative to extend unemployment benefits. How committed are you to the new plan and should American’s count on it not changing in the next few months?
- Does running a campaign really count as a qualification to run the country?
- You were Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project for four years. The project spent approximately $110 million dollars to improve schools on your watch, yet it’s final report found no significant improvement in student outcomes. As the executive in charge, what in your opinion went wrong?
- On at least two occasions, including most recently in your interview with Bill O’Reilly, you’ve indicated that you think America should be envious of the Chinese infrastructure. Do you think it’s appropriate to compare America unfavorably to a Communist system that offers little if any freedom of press, religion, assembly or movement to its citizens, not to mention having no say in infrastructure spending?
- You promised to present a new kind of politics, one that wouldn’t get into the mud. Yet one of your own spokesmen recently sent a letter to a Miami newspaper — where there is a large Jewish population — labeling Governor Palin a Buchanan supporter and further labeling Buchanan a Nazi sympathizer. How do you reconcile this with your pledge and what if any disciplinary action have you taken?
- At what point do you believe human rights attach to an unborn child? [Asked but not answered.]
- You’ve criticized Governor Palin for being for the so-called bridge to nowhere before she was against it and yet you twice cast a vote for the bridge while in the Senate. How is your record on this wasteful spending project better than hers?
- In what way does Joe Biden — who has been a Senator since you were twelve years old — represent the promise of change in Washington?
I could come up with a few more if pressed, but it’s a start. I think all of these questions are serious and, given where the bar was set for Palin, completely fair.
It’s particularly curious to me that no one has really delved into Obama’s four years at Annenberg. Forget the Ayres connection, his most credible claim to executive experience was an expensive flop. Shouldn’t that concern us?
Update 5PM: Just came across this video which relates to question #5. The music is a bit heavy handed but the information is good:
This was one of Obama’s major qualification just a few years ago. Why isn’t it an issue now? Where is the detailed investigative piece by the NY Times or Washington Post?
Category: MSM & Bias, Politics |
I’m sure Tom and Charlie and Katie will get to these questions as soon as they nail down how it feels to be so wonderful and all aspects of Barry’s favorite color.
September 15, 2008 @ 11:36 amPoor fools don’t realize they are digging their own graves. Between them they lack the credibility necessary for a cable news show.
Love it!
Not to mention the Chinese infrastructure he was was nothing but a Potempkin village. When I was teaching in Korean,my friends were planning a trip to China. The travel agents, and experienced China travelers, were telling them not to count on trains to get them anyplace, since the rails were always washing out and the trains would sometimes not run for days at a time, regardless of what the schedules said.
THIS is worthy of envy?
September 15, 2008 @ 3:06 pmJohn, you’re forgetting Obama’s single greatest achievement as a community organizer – securing more fragrant urinal cakes in the men’s rooms throughout the south side.
September 15, 2008 @ 5:44 pm[...] Ten Tough Questions the Press Hasn’t Asked Obama Good, fair questions. (tags: politics barack_obama) [...]
September 16, 2008 @ 12:01 amJohn – re your #8:
The question Rick Warren asked Obama was “When is a BABY entitled to human rights?” This is a very different question than the one you pose. The ability to answer this rather basic question is, in the Senator’s own words, “above his pay grade.”
I see this misquoted by conservatives all the time – I guess we can’t quite fathom the mind of someone who can’t answer it “with any specificity”.
Chills my blood.
September 16, 2008 @ 5:59 pmSomeone who can’t answer that basic question is a certifed half-wit. So much for being educated at Harvard. By the way, notice the recent polling data. The more Obama and the media go after Palin, the more McCain’s numbers soar. McCain is down 5 points in New York! Unbelievable. Our Messiah better be good in those debates and he’s got to get his buddies in the MSM to lay off of Palin or this thing could be over. I guess he could finish his term in the Senate and go back to community organizing. Better yet – the local gas station is looking for an employee. Our resident Messianic genius could work there putting air in people’s tires.
September 16, 2008 @ 10:19 pmBarbara Walters should be ashamed the way she treated McCain, badgering him with questions & would not let him answer, while she would not even look at him, sat sideways to him. As a reporter she would have made a better impression had she shown our candidate for president respect. Shame on you Barbara Walters. By this behaviour you may have lost the one thing you have seemingly spent a career trying to build….character & credibility. Takes a long time to rebuild. In her younger years I admired her & thought she was very professional…maybe it’s just her age…maybe ….she has certainly shown a side to her that would have been better not shown. It favored desperation & strife in my opinion. . hmmm
September 17, 2008 @ 8:33 amCome on guys.
The fury and frequency of conservatives’ accusations of a sharp leftist bias in the mainstream media smack of paranoia.
MSM professionals are just people making a living. There are a few bad apples in every industry, and those in the MSM occasionally provide token instances of an apparent leftist bias, instances which conservatives loudly and lamely celebrate as proof of their assertions–as if there aren’t occasions of right-wing bias out there too. The bias-example-of-the-week approach to characterizing the vastness of the media is hopeless.
It’s a fascinating notion really, that of a persistent, entrenched, and widespread left-wing media bias…but the implied logistical requirements make it far-fetched at best. As chillingly described by many outspoken conservatives, this purported bias would require organization. And don’t tell me you didn’t say anything about conspiracy. The tone and content of your assertions imply exactly that.
Besides, if you were not postulating a vast left-wing conspiracy, then you presume no organized effort, and be forced to conclude most if not all MSM journalists and executives just happen to be (1) left-leaning, and (2) inclined to unethically taint their work with their personal beliefs. Unlikely. We return to the organization argument, one of whose corollaries being that either the above are enforced prerequisites for hiring on as a reporter, or these tendencies always nmanifest after joining the oh-so-wicked MSM community by some transformation. How does that work? Why a liberal bias rather than conservative?
Here’s a rational approach. The MSM is nothing more insidious than a conglomeration of businesses, an eager participant in America’s free market system, in the business of making money, and arguably no more hostile to conservative views than any other industry. It is not reasonable to imply with wild assertions that as a rule, the MSM allocates limited resourcesto meeting non-trivial demands of a sustaining any bias–left- OR rightward. The demands of adhering to a leftist bias would incur such costs as that of rewriting news articles–a familiar, if dubious theme of cited “examples” of bias–and other liabilities such as the expense of screening new hires for liberal leanings, and parsing news events so as to publish mostly just ones that disparage conservative views and/or compliment liberals.
(Regarding the latter, another frequent conservative complaint implies an active filtering process required not to publish “the news the MSM doesn’t want you to hear…”).
Cound the newsmedia business afford the extraneous and recurring costs of accommodating the activities of an indigenous leftist crusade, compounding its achnowledged tasks of gathering and reporting news? A bias undertaking would have to compete for scarce resources with the non-partisan pressures any free-market enterprise already contends with, such as staying in the black. Do MSM business models take these considerations into account?
Conclusions: The MSM’s “bias” falls squarely where the readership is perceived to demand it. MSM output inevitably reflects the pulse of mainstream consumers, and does not endeavor to damage any particular enterprise by means of some methodology. Free-market pressures would compel–no, obligate–the MSM to act more conservative if this would generate increased revenue. MSM products naturally fall in the center of the cultural mainstream–hence the term.
Conservatives want a left-leaning MSM, they need it, and they love to hate it. The fear-monngering “everyone’s against us and it’s just not fair!” rally-cry will continue to be used as a tool to unite the faithful.
Conservatives don’t like what they see in the MSM. Oooh..it must be out to get ‘em!
October 18, 2008 @ 7:21 pmWonder why democrats and many Americans are so blinded by the eloquency of a man (Obama) who is so inexperienced. Its like a mass psychological effect. Does Obama even sound genuine ? Lets think twice before we vote ! He funded the then opposition leader (Raila Odinga, who is reportedly related to Obama and an Islamic agent; now the prime Minister) in Kenya who in turn used the money to fund the violence which resulted in thousands loosing their homes and about two thousand dead – what a shame !!!! And America is ready to vote for the little known Obama and his connections !! No military record either !!!
October 20, 2008 @ 5:14 pmJH:
October 21, 2008 @ 7:44 amSo how does this differ from the HUFFINGTON Web site? Did you also criticize her or are you just intollerant of those who don’t agree with you? Go figure.
The voters can only make up their minds based on what the media feeds us. FOX news is blatantly pro McCain. MSNBC is blatantly pro Obama. You know what you are being fed when you listen to them. It is a different story when it comes to the rest of the media.
The overwhelming majority of media coverage has been DISGUISED as unbiased. When all you hear is McCain is negative; McCain does not have a plan; presented by 10 second MEDIA sound bites of Obama supporters. Every day a new Biden sound bite is shown of Biden saying “McCain is trying to link Obama to terrorists…” The media’s chosen 10 seconds out of the latest stump speach. Are we supposed to believe this is all Biden talks about in a 30 minute speach?? Unbiased media presentation? I think not.
The media carefully chooses what we hear and therefore what we believe. The media presentation of Obama: He talks to the people – the when one of the people is critical – the media crucifies him. He owes taxes – someone took the time to dig upan income tax $2500 lein on Joe the plumber. Only $2500 ? Did he not file a Quarterly report? Did the IRS find an error in his 2007 return and hit him with interest and penalties? We need to watch out for such a dangerous criminal. Thak you low life unbiased reporter for teaching this guy that disagrees with Obama a lesson!
If McCain, had said, as Obama did, that he would move the military into any country to prevent injustice as Obama did; Or subsidize the economies of the former Soviet satellite countries (when in the dabate Obama referred to Georgia etc.) The press would have crucified McCain if he said these things.
I can hear it now: “Now McCain wants to expand the military and go into any country he wants. In a time of economic problems in the US McCain wants to help foreign countries because of oil. And he’s so dumb he doesn’t even know that the satellite countries were Poland etc. We need some one smart like Obama who knows the differance.” But because its Obama that said these things … the media says nothing.
I could go on and on and on with examples of editors carefully deciding the wording of a headline or the 10 second sound bite carefully chosen (usually out of hours of tapes and issues)
to feed the dumb voter… like daily showing Biden and other Democratic spokesmen asking “why is the McCain camp trying to link Obama with terror?” The press would have us believe that there is nothing of substance that these people ever talk about? They don’t have anthing positive to say about Obama? The most important unbiased message for the voters to hear is Biden claiming McCain is negative?
The only thing worse than biased reporting is veiled biased reporting.
I don’t understand why Obama bothers spending more money on negative ads than any one in history. He doesn’t need to. He’s got the press.
If McCain were doing this spending would the press be silent?
October 21, 2008 @ 8:12 amResponse to #10
Be serious What stupid person would not vote for Free Stuff and Lower Taxes for all?
McCain tells us there are challenging times ahead requiring sacrifice. The truth hurts. What intellegent person would vote for pain?
Obama learned well from the political science and government courses that he took at Harvard. He learned the power and importance of using Political Promises to get elected… and what to do with them after the election. Brooklyn Bridge anyone?
If you vote for Obama’s political promises you are as dumb as Obama thinks you are.
October 21, 2008 @ 8:30 am