Sunday, October 12, 2008

Obama concedes mistake... aah shouldn't that be, "Obama admits lying?"

From the comments section:
"Obama tries to put an innocent spin on everything he does, but his leanings toward terrorist sympathizers makes him untrustworthy. He will not get my vote. Lucille, Kansas City, MO"
lucillestandlee@hotmail.com (Friday, October 10, 2008 1:31 AM)

The Obama Spin

FALSIFYING EVIDENCE TO WIN SUPPORT. "Accurate information" and "analyzing issues" are two of many seductive euphemism that deceive the public. Truth and facts matter little. (United Nations and Saul Alinsky strategies) Obama uses these tactics very efficiently.


The Obama Philosophy

"All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands.."

Obama concedes mistake over Muslim outreach meeting
Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2008 10:32 PM ET

By Jim Popkin, NBC News Senior Investigative Producer

The Obama campaign’s Muslim outreach director participated in a meeting in mid September that was attended by several controversial Muslim activists, NBC News has learned. The Obama campaign now concedes that was a misjudgment, and that its top Muslim staffer would not have attended the meeting if she had known the full participant list beforehand.

“Would a campaign staffer have attended if they were aware of the complete list of attendees? No,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt in an email statement to NBC.

The Muslim outreach meeting
On September 15, newly named Muslim outreach director Minha Husaini spoke to a small group of Muslim leaders and potential Obama supporters at a hotel in Springfield, Virginia, several meeting participants and the campaign said. Two other Obama-affiliated Democratic Party workers joined Husaini and also spoke to the crowd. Some Virginia and Washington, D.C.-based Muslim activists and interested citizens attended, and flyers were passed out from “Arab Americans for Obama” stating Sen. Obama’s goals for achieving peace in the Middle East, protecting the civil liberties of Arab Americans and ending the war in Iraq.

Several participants told NBC News that Husaini and other speakers delivered a standard Obama campaign pitch. “They said, ‘We’re here to get the concerns of Muslim voters and let everyone know that the Obama campaign does want the support of the Muslim community,’ ” recalled one participant, who requested anonymity. The meeting was not advertised and some attendees got text phone messages notifying them that day of the meeting’s location, the participant said.

Nearly a month later, the meeting is drawing controversy--and not because of anything said at the meeting itself.

The attendees
One meeting attendee was Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society, several of the participants said. The MAS website describes Bray as an imam and “long time civil and human rights activist.” Bray’s critics say he has a history of defending terrorists. They point to a video of Bray at a rally in 2000, for example, in which he can be seen pumping his fist in the air in support of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. In a 2004 interview, he called the Israeli assassination of a Hamas spiritual leader an “unlawful, cowardly and dangerous act of state-sponsored terrorism.” Bray did not return a call requesting comment.

Also attending the meeting was Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR is a Muslim-American civil rights group that has, as its website states, “consistently and persistently condemned terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians.” Nonetheless, the group has many critics, especially in law-enforcement circles, and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case.

In an interview on Thursday, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said that the group has filed a legal brief seeking to have its name removed from the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the federal terror case. “Obviously we see it as politically motivated and a cheap way to stigmatize” CAIR and other Muslim groups, Hooper said.

Hooper said that CAIR has consistently condemned “every act of terrorism” by groups including Hamas and Hezbollah. But he would not answer whether CAIR condemns those designated terrorist groups themselves. “I’ve already answered your questions,” he said, and abruptly ended the interview. Nihad Awad, the executive director, did not return a call seeking comment.

"Political liability"
A second meeting participant speaking on condition on anonymity said he was stunned to learn that Awad and Bray had been invited to an event where Obama representatives would be present. The participant said Awad and Bray are considered politically “radioactive.” He said that some in the Obama group knew ahead of time that top CAIR officials would be in attendance--an allegation the Obama campaign disputes.

“Yes, when I knew they were coming it made me uncomfortable,” the attendee said. “There was some hope it wouldn’t get out” into the media, the attendee added. “There was some concern within the Obama camp that some of these people coming may be a political liability.”

Chicago-based lawyer Mazen Asbahi also attended the meeting. He is the Obama campaign’s former Muslim outreach coordinator, who abruptly resigned in August after the Wall Street Journal and websites that track fundamentalist Islam began questioning Asbahi’s involvement in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups. When reached by NBC News, Asbahi would not comment about the September gathering or his brief stint eight years ago on an investment fund board which also included a fundamentalist imam.

When informed that Asbahi had attended the recent meeting, an Obama spokesman said: “Mazen Asbahi resigned from his role as the campaign’s Muslim American outreach coordinator and was replaced--he is not an employee of the campaign and does not speak on behalf of the campaign.”

The Obama campaign has been delicately trying to court Muslim American voters in key battleground states while simultaneously knocking down Internet rumors that attempt to link the presidential candidate to radical Islam. Sen. Obama is a Christian.

Obama campaign reaction
The Obama campaign would not allow NBC News to interview its Muslim outreach director, Minha Husaini. It issued a statement explaining that she was not a meeting organizer. “Our campaign has an interfaith outreach organization that is equipping people of faith with the tools they need to educate their friends and family members about Senator Obama’s plans to bring the change we need,” the statement said. “This meeting was not organized by the campaign--our outreach staff attends many meetings in the course of each day, and they accepted an invitation from community leaders to attend.”

Comments

Big deal. It seems, given what was known at the time, to be there. It seems appropriate now, that the campaign would not do it again. Unless one is looking maniacally for the "Obama is really a terrorist" angle, I don't see a story here.
We all need to be very, very afraid. Osama Obama ....... the name tells it all. He IS definitely in cahoots with terrorists.
Come on Lefties, get a clue. How much smoke do you need to see before the light is clear. Obama is a dangerous person in his own right. You just can't wave these things off steadily.
If this is the best you can come up with for a fresh Obama scandal, I'd have to say better luck next time. Peripheries, six degrees of separation, whether you're talking about the McCain campaign or Obama campaign, it's a simple fact that a presidential campaign is a broad operation and that many people are drawn in.
Clear case of Yellow Journalism. NBC is joke!
This is such a damned if you do, damned if you don't moment. They are trying to do something good but because it involves the Muslim community they cannot win.
I live in Houston, Texas very international community, my neighbors are Hindu, Muslims, Christians, Athetist, Agnostics and we are tolerant of each other. Not all profess radical thoughts as Joe Vogler who started the Independent party in Alaska, who wanted to sucession for the US. This is the real isssue, and the republican party need a diversion......
LOL someones trying to get a scoop on a pointless story about a staffer of non consequence haahahhaha.

Is this the best you can do?
Wow. This is on NBC? So forget Ayers. Obama doesn't even check who's going to be at meetings? Then ontop of it we're not allowed to interview the outreach director? Wonder how long until this will be brushed under the carpet. Seeing as it's in itty bitty small print under a HUGE Sarah Palin investigation headline... Eh, I'll be blasted and told "it's not news" 40 times under this.
Obama personally supported Raila Odinga of Kenya while visiting Kenya in 2006, a socialist whose son is named Fidel after Fidel Castro. Frank Marshall Davis, Reverend Wright, William Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, refers to his grandmother as a "typical white person", his wife said that "for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country", will meet with our enemies without preconditions. Amazing that we are about to elect this man President of the United States.
The McCain camp is pulling out all stops to try to beat Obama...... It's McCain who is a very very dangerous person.
So decent people of the muslim faith can't support Obama because of the fear that intolerant and ignorant people like you will masquerade it into some side distraction. This is ridiculous rhetoric that does nothing to speak to the imperiling issues. Enough of this journalism if that's what you call it.


Obama tries to put an innocent spin on everything he does, but his leanings toward terrorist sympathizers makes him untrustworthy. He will not get my vote.
Lucille, Kansas City, MO
This is amazingly irresponsible journalism. Who, exactly, are these people's critics? And what, exactly, makes them 'controversial' aside from their defense of other Muslims? As a Jew, I find it amazing how willing people are to demonize and dehumanize another group of people in a manner not unlike the period leading up to the Holocaust. Is it that surprising that professionals who serve as the heads of prominent Muslim American organizations are unable to 'condemn' Muslim political activities to the satisfaction of American journalists when the assumption guiding every interview with a Muslim is that all Muslims--everywhere--are implicitly guilty unless proven otherwise?

This is insanity.

The US has invaded and continues to occupy two formerly sovereign countries and has positioned a fleet of war ships outside of Iran, a country that has never invaded anyone! Based on the coverage of Iran and their admittedly arrogant President, one would assume that Iran is the most dangerous country in the history of mankind.

What countries has Iran ever invaded?

Why is Iran subject to an entirely different set of rules regarding nuclear power than India, Israel, Pakistan, N. Korea or the United States?

Journalists have a responsibility to tell the truth and hold people in power accountable for their actions.....not to slander people through the use of journalistic conventions.

If the people who are named above have committed a crime, then they should be held accountable. But if they have not, then reporters should stick to the facts instead of contributing to a wave of hateful hysteria that seeks to resolve itself through another 'final solution'. Is this not obvious, Mr. Popkin? Or are you simply waiting until people literally start smashing up Muslim storefronts and force them all to wear red crescent armbands before you take a little responsibility as a journalist with a public voice.

Your article has basically stated that Obama attended a peaceful meeting, with no controversial content, organized by a group of professional activists who persistently renounce terrorism. How, exactly, is this newsworthy story?
Please name one action that Obama has taken in his 25 years of public life that is not mainstream. He was voted Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review for goodness sakes, because he was even-tempered, brilliant, dependable, and able to bring consensus. Desperate Republicans are setting the country's race relations back two decades and inciting violence at McCain-Palin rallies. Country first? McCain chose the unknown, and unqualified Palin who is married to a member of the Alaska Independence Party. Obama chose Biden--that's who is going to be advising him in the White House.
Whoopty do! Is anyone checking members of the right-wing militia who are attending McCain or Palin's rallies? And what about the U.S. military personnel and Iraqi civilians that have been killed because of Bush's illegal action of invading and occupying Iraq?

Our country is melting down right in front of our eyes and this guy writes about activists at some Muslim outreach meeting! Man, we better get our priorities straight in this country and fast, otherwise there isn't going to be anything left of it.
I don't suppose it would be too hard to tack down a few white supremacists at a McCain rally these days. Just sayin....
How does NBC keep these journalists on its payroll or may be paid by Israel?
Totally yellow journalism, trying to find any excuse to stop Obama. Go Obama, Go!! This country needs change.
These mtgs. aren't advertised but Obama's Rep. Husaini attended, why didn't she leave after finding out the controversial muslim activist were there? Because they just want the vote so bad, let's pray you aren't wrong about all these ties to people of questionable character, supporting Obama. I trust McCain without doubt.
Too bad that the Obama campaign has to apologize when meeting with Muslim activists of various stripes just because the crucial American demographic of the paranoid and ignorant matter in our politics. Forget the 1st Amendment.
I truly find it scary when these types of "stories" are written. Especially in a time of global economic turmoil.
Rather than focusing on the issues that face us today, we'd rather discuss who did what, with whom, and when, which just seems juvenile. Focus on real solutions, what solutions each candidate actually brings to the table and vote on that.
I find Americans are becoming ostriches we are putting our head in the sand and refusing to see reality, we are trying to be soooo "inclusive" of everything.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, quess what it may just be a DUCK!!!!
Yet another pathetic attempt of the McCain campaign to distract the public from the real issues... They have nothing else to grab hold of... PATHETIC!....

Since when are American's not accepting of people of different backgrounds and faiths??? Muslim does not mean Terrorist... GET A LIFE.
Here is an idea. Why doesn't the Obama campaign learn to differentiate between the vast majority of Muslims and Islamists. What if McCain were doing Christian outreach and a bunch of people from Bob Jones showed up?
Once again Obama's campaign calls this "misjudgment" on their part. How many times do we need to hear this crap and not think that Obama has horrible judgment. I don't know about anyone else, but I do not trust a man to run my country with little experience who hangs out with people who dislike my country.
Wow, all of the fear mongering is ridiculous!!! Can you imagine how many meetings get attended by Obama campaign staff all over the country? Are there not racist at any of the meetings any where? Think about those canvassers out in the rural areas trying to dispel the myths..... How many racist do you think they talk to? This is a non story that is silly.
Guilt by association. None of the people mentioned here as "radioactive" have been charged or convicted, yet somehow they are guilty in the eyes of this author.

The way things are going, it seems just being a Muslim disqualifies you from even attending a gathering of political significant, forget about running for any political office. This is what I call disenfranchising the Muslims in America by spooking them.
The western societies are good at saying "never-again" and building memorial museums (slavery, holocast, Japanese encampment) after the fact, yet repeating the same nonsense over and over again.
It wasn't an Obama Muslim meeting, you idiot, it was a Muslim meeting in which an Obama staffer was invited. How dishonest of you to try and grab attention with you inflated headline. NBC will stoop to any level to create a so-called star investigative reporter. Go find a real story, like how we're going to crawl out of this financial mess we're in and stop trying to distract our attention with this crap. Come back when you have some BEEF and leave the sizzle to the Republicans who are far better at distraction than resolution.
Oh, come on. Aren't we smart enough to see that there are no links between Sen. Obama and terrorists? Having a campaign surrogate unknowingly be in the same place at the same time as a quasi-extremist is a far cry from Obama being a terrorist. Had the campaign representatives left, they would have missed out on the opportunity to speak with the 99.9% of meeting participants who are everyday Muslim-Americans. This is fear-mongering, just like Bush's campaign pulled in the last couple of elections. Pay it no mind.

And to the person who said, "Obama, Osama," I sure hope you are being facetious.
Linda, OMG His name sounds like OSAMA!!! RUN!!!!OMG his middle name is HUSSEIN OMG!! RUN!!! AHHH! Grow up we are not in 3rd grade. It is a name. Dig and you will find all canidates paths have crossed with controversal people. This is America. If they are a criminal arrest them. If not move on.
This is just more fodder for the fear mongering GOP and their surrogates, Fixed News. It will surely incite their sheepish base and the intolerant, right-wing, militant, rednecks that feed on such trivial innuendo, but that’s about it. I suppose everyone who ever was in the company of, or is associated with someone who was in the company of a controversial Muslim leader, is guilty of colluding with terrorists. By that logic, we must condemn Bush for his close ties to the Saudi leadership who routinely fund terrorist causes and allow the teaching of jihad and hated for all Jews and westerners to their children. Give me a break! OBAMA/BIDEN’08
I am a muslim, I participate in the political process and I see nothing contraversial here. CAIR is a very respected organization within the muslim community locally and around the world and so are the leaders, Mahdi Bray & Nihad Awad. The unindicted co-conspirator nonesense was a political gimmick aimed at the very thing in this article i.e. guilt by association to marginalize muslims from the mainstream political process and disenfranchise them. The Hamas and Hezbollah support yardsticks are used to instill fear in the US citizens by Israeli agents.
Obama's parents named him just the same as mine named me. I'm sure they didn't name him with the intent that his name be controversial 47 years later. For the lady who commented saying his name says everything, let's hope no one is offended at the wayhername sounds.
Makes me think,
Sat in a Church for 20 years but didn't know Wright was a racist, Did business with Ayers for 15 years but didn't know he was a terrioist. Bought property from Resko but didn't know he was shady. Sent a Director from his campaign to a meeting with Islamic Terriost but didn't know. Seems to me he doesn't know some very important things....or did he and is not being honest! Obama is a dangerous man!
This meeting and the trumped up accusations of terrorists ties have nothing to do with handling our dreadful economy. When McCain admitted he didn't know much about the economy, he lost my vote!
Hey, yeah - Obama/Osama. That does rhyme!! That HAS to mean they are connected. Obama, Osama, wait - Dali Lama! Oh no - he's involved too?!
Politicians meet millions of people each year. Are we asking now that everyone be pre-screened ? Should we not be allowed to meet with them at all, put them in an ivory tower lest they come into contact with someone unapproved by the media ? Give me a friggn break. This is a joke, a very sad joke.
You would think BO would know about this group BEFORE sending someone to attend. Seems to be a pattern here. I don't like hearing.....mistake, I didn't know, etc. Sounds a little like Bush.
These are the blunders that fuels the Republican anti-Obama rhetoric. Why didn't the Obama representatives leave the venue? I'm an Obama supporter and will vote for the Obama/Biden ticket on November 4th. However what a blunder that could cost the election!
It's curious, at this time in the campaign, that Obama's attendance at a meeting of two moderate Moslem-American groups should be NEWS. This meeting was about a month ago? Both candidates are scrutinized constantly--so why is this "information" released now, three or so weeks later?

Could it be that the McCain campaign wants a distraction story to cover the release of the official report (not the McCain-Palin campaign "report") on Gov. Palin's Troopergate activities?

Why does the McCain campaign constantly comment on Obama's so-called "palling around" with radical or "non-American" figures and groups, including attendance at (he didn't address this group as he did the AIPAC meeting the DAY AFTER his nomination for President) these Muslim-American groups' meeting?

His attendance at a Muslim-American group meeting is, as everyone knows, CODE for the McCain-Palin campaign's claim that Obama is "not one of us, dangerous" that is--"black."

Of course McCain's dodgy Viet Nam POW record is never mentioned by the Obama campaign. McCain claims to have "tried to commit suicide" over his release of information--to the Viet Cong--of information that he well knew would put his fellow-Americans in the US Air Force in danger of being shot down?

Obama is too much of a statesman to throw that kind of mud.

Why isn't the Keating Five--the S & L scandal that costs the taxpayers billions--and McCain's accepting of lobby money and gifts played up as relentlessly?

Obama is too much of a statesman to descend into that kind of mud-throwing game-pit where Palin and McCain seem to live.

Why has NBC "investigative journalism" previously released news of Obama's attendance at a meeting of moderate Muslim-American groups? Don't they have the right to meet just as Palin's husband and she have a right to attend far-right-wing meetings of Alaska's extremist, secessionist Independence Party meetings?

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." McCain is desperate. In fact, McCain is scared and scary.

Bill and Nancy
The comments on here are absolutely unbelievable! "Yellow journalism?" ... give me a break...Palin is blasted from every side, McCain is being made fun of by Obama for not being able to send an e-mail, and ACORN is signing up drunk homeless people to vote for Obama (many times over under different or the same name)... wake up you people! Where is the outrage about his drug use? His taking the second most money from Fannie Mae than any senator? Hiring a sleazy lawyer to disqualify all the signatures on voter registrations in his very first election to the point that he actually ran unopposed? Obama is dangerous and we will all be very, very sorry if he is elected. How much of this can you ignore? I cannot fathom the ignoring of the dozens of shady, illicit connections this candidate has, but the sheeple libs are desperate to throw away our country for socialism/marxism...throw out all the issues and focus on character, you have to admit McCain wins in a landslide.
It was a staffer, not Obama that attended the meeting.

I think it wise for Obama to have connections with the Muslim community and to reach out to people of all backgrounds. I'm pretty sure as Christians, that's exactly what we are called on to do. Sure beats the paranoid repressive intolerant approach of the Republican party.

He's made it clear that he does not tolerate or condone violent radicalism.

I wonder how many "undesirables" have attended Republican conventions, fund-raisers, and campaign appearances unbeknownst to the organizers or the other attendees.


To Mrs. Flores in FL, at least get your facts correct, his association with Mr. Wright is what it is, it was his pastor, I believe Mr. McCain has a scary pastor in his past also, your Ayers claim is more wrong than FOX could get it, and having people at a voting forum/meeting that MIGHT have associations with certain groups doesn't say anything about who Barack Obama is. As a previous response stated, Bush has lots of family friends in the Saudi govt. much less the contacts after he became president that have known sympathies and actual contributions to many known terrorist organizations, including al Qa'ida. And lets not even begin to talk about people in the real estate market with shady dealings. After the current housing crisis it seems there were a lot of those folks. And I'm guessing you don't know all the dealings of every person you associate with either.
I believe that Mr. Obama is a very intelligent man and I would like to honestly feel comfortable in voting for him but I don't; because I also agree with Diane Flores' statement about sitting in church for 20 yrs and not knowing that Rev. Wright is racist etc.....it's kind of like people being sorry after they have been caught in wrongdoing. I don't believe that he didn't know these things. He didn't renounce Rev. Wright and his beliefs or leave the church until he thought it would affect his campaign. I think we should be very careful, with our naivety and our habit of sticking our heads in the sand. We didn't even see 9/11 coming. We couldn't believe that something that horrible could happen but it did because we weren't paying attention. I am afraid for our country regardless of who gets elected this time. I don't think either candidate is capable enough or trustworthy enough to lead our great nation. God help us all. Diane - Madison,Ohio
Whats the difference between talking to Arabs living in the U.S. and sending 1000's of our troops to liberate (Help)Arabs in Iraq,and in Afganistan which McCain and Bush support?????????????????
McCain is an Irish name...he must be part of the IRA!
....just one more "nugget" of information that adds to the pile of accusations, all of which should...repeat should...make Americans question the integrity, character, and make up of this candidate who wants to be the leader of our nation. For some reason, no one wants to cover and explore anything bad about this candidate. Can you say conspiracy theory? If he wins, I truly hope all of this does not come back to haunt us and our country.
This is very misleading "headline." You make it sound as though Senator Obama attended this meeting himself! The headline is just more fodder for the "radical" right to spread more lies.

Donna
Monroeville, PA
It seems the left has chosen to forget where our biggest physical threat comes from - Muslim extremists. Here you have a member of Obama's staff attending a meeting with them. So, why was the meeting kept so hush-hush? Now that it's over and done with, has Obama come out and publicly condemned these organizations? No, all he said was that they were a political liability. He's got an agenda and it's to undermine the foundation of this country. This Independent will not vote for him and I applaud NBC (a liberal-leaning entity) for printing this story.
The real story here is why was this meeting secret? Why notify via text? There would be no story if the Obama campaign was open about this meeting. It might actually have done some good. Here's a candidate trying to reach out to certain voters. Nothing wrong with that. As usual, it is the paranoia and secrecy espoused by Obama and/or his campaign directors that sends up serious red flags for me. Why the need for such secrecy?

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