Obama: Another super, exaggeration
Posted: Monday, March 31, 2008 9:12 AM by Mark Murray
Obama drew 20,000 to Penn State. Check out the photo of him with the Penn State football jersey. Wasn’t he doing that in Austin, too?
Another super for Obama. He picks up the endorsement of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar today, giving him another superdelegate supporter. The endorsement will occur in a conference call at 10:30 am ET. “In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Klobuchar said Obama ‘has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time.’” Also: "North Carolina's seven Democratic House members are poised to endorse Sen. Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say." But Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells First Read that there will be no endorsements from North Carolina congressmen coming today. "That did not come from our campaign, we have not confirmed that," Burton adds.
The Washington Post caught Obama in an exaggeration about the Kennedy family role in getting his father to America. It turns out the Kennedys were not involved in any Kenyan airlifts until after Obama's father was safely in Hawaii. What is it about politicians trying too hard to be a part of history? Sometimes, there isn't a destiny; that's ok too.
The Los Angeles Times does something many Obama supporters have been asking the media to do for weeks: put Rev. Wright in some context. "Examining the full content of Wright's sermons and delivery style yields a far more complex message, though one that some will still find objectionable. For more than 30 years, Wright walked churchgoers every Sunday along a winding road from rage to reconciliation, employing a style that validated both. ‘He's voicing a reality that those people experience six days a week,’ said the Rev. Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Trinity member. ‘In that sense, he's saying they're not insane. That helps them to function the other six days of the week.’”
Politico reports, “During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion– positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he’s projected during his presidential campaign. The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.”
“Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he ‘never saw or approved’ the questionnaire. They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who ‘unintentionally mischaracterize(d) his position.’ But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago non-profit group that issued it. And it found that Obama – the day after sitting for the interview – filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes adding to one answer.”
More: “Through an aide, Obama, who won the group’s endorsement as well as the statehouse seat, did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn’t prove he completed, approved – or even read – the latter questionnaire. ‘Sen. Obama didn’t fill out these state Senate questionnaires – a staffer did – and there are several answers that didn't reflect his views then or now,’ said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, in an emailed statement. ‘He may have jotted some notes on the front page of the questionnaire at the meeting, but that doesn't change the fact that some answers didn't reflect his views. His eleven years in public office do.’”
Obama "described the Bush Administration's sweeping changes to financial market regulation as "inadequate." “While noting that he hadn't yet seen the full proposal, which Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will unveil Monday, the Illinois senator said that, based upon news reports, he believed the proposed regulatory reforms didn't go far enough, though he lauded the proposed consolidation of regulatory agencies. Sen. Obama laid out his own proposals to boost regulation of the financial industry during a speech in lower Manhattan last week."
