Washington Post 'Lacked Obama Probes'

The Washington Post's own watchdog has taken the unusual step of apologising to readers over its lack of probing investigations into now president-elect Obama and pro-Obama coverage.

The watchdog is particularly critical over its lack of scrutiny of Obama's background and early years.

The apology follows an investigation by the newspaper's own ombudsman, Debrah Howell, into the Post's coverage over the last year. The Orange Party has consistently criticised the US media for not doing its job properly and holding a candle up equally to both candidates.

The Washington Post is the leading political newspaper in the US. The Orange Party has tremendous respect for the Post, its journalists and distinguished record for political reporting. Around October 17, the newspaper endorsed Obama as a candidate and the media frenzy really began.

Howell and her team's lengthy and detailed examination of the Post's coverage ranges from issues, voters, fund-raising, the candidates' backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants, photos and page one leads.

There's much to be commended in the Post's coverage and praise for much of the Post's reporting but as Howell points out:

"Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a teenager."

Those views chime with those of the Orange Party and respected former Sunday Times editor, Harold Evans, who made a similar and more scathing attack on these glaring omissions.

Howell dissects the 'count' in meticulous detail and concludes it was "lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories."

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32).

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Post reporters, photographers and editors, like most of the media, just found Obama more newsworthy, more interesting. Journalists love superlatives and anything new.

Concerns were raised yesterday, by Matthew Parris of the London Times:

"And this whole thing could go very sour. A politician who has subtly insinuated himself into the imaginations of millions as a secret friend and the personal champion of all their hopes for the world may find their disappointment the more bitter in the end."

The Orange Party expressed similar, though more forceful concerns, the day after that night before.

Newspaper coverage is often poll-driven and the Post was no exception but that's never going to change. It had its fair share of focus on poll-driven issues.

The Orange Party would add its voice to the special praise given to the penetrating reporting of Dan Balz, one of the "best, most level-headed, incisive political reporters and analysts in newspapers".

And to the reality checks given by media critic, Howard Kurtz, often used as a steer by the Orange Party during those turbulent election times.

One gaping hole was in coverage of Obama's running mate and now vice-president elect, Joe Biden. The media went over the top with Palin and neglected Biden. Howell says: "They are right; it was a serious omission."

In general, Howell concludes: "Readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts."

In many ways what Howell says isn't new and has been backed up by other research such as studies from the Project for Excellence in Journalism but here is a newspaper which has the guts to shine a light on itself.

The Washington Post has its finger on the pulse of the US political scene and was one of the first newspapers in the US to establish its own ombudsman, looking at reader complaints about news coverage and monitoring standards. That in itself is reassuring and refreshing.

It was the Post's dogged reporting which helped break the Watergate Scandal leading to Nixon's resignation.

Years later the newspaper's then owner, Katherine Graham, gave a warning which holds as true today as it did then:

"We live in a dirty and dangerous world... I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."

No politician is above scrutiny. Newspapers can make and break presidents. As Nixon found to his cost.

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God Help America Now

America faces a disturbing and unsettled future after voters were taken in by the most powerful and expensive marketing machine in US history. Obama talked the talk. The media helped him sell a soap powder dream. But with false hope comes shattered dreams. 

The Orange Party was born out of the lunacy of Blair's New Labour Project but Obama quickly came on the radar.

Since the Main stream media was obviously not going to do anything about him, someone had to say something about the sham.

In the early days of June 2008, the first article was published, following a visit to friends in the US. That was a short, innocuous piece, “Is Obama Too Good To Be True?“, in which the Orange Party questioned a guy who seemed to be a product of a slick marketing machine and packaged up like soap powder. Another Tony Blair. 

"He talks the talk but his words and slogans can mean anything to anybody. Are we being manipulated? Is Obama just too good to be true? He's a PR composite. All things to all people. A figment of the ad man's imagination. The darling of the media elite."

Friends in the US from all backgrounds were enlisted and not a Republican among them. All would be happy to spit on Bush's grave. They gave the steer and the confidence to swim against the tide of increasing Obama adulation. 

At that time, issues of his funding, background, links with dodgy Chicago characters, ACORN and double speak, were all unknowns but well known by others. 

Something was wrong. About his rhetoric, the sycophancy of the media and its Faustian pact. It didn't smell right. 

It centred on the fact that selling Obama in this way was both meaningless and dangerous, when the US was facing so many complex problems at home and abroad. 

A guy who is so willing to sell empty slogans, had to be hiding something. And he was. What we know about Obama today is quite disturbing. 

Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, writing in NRO, summed it up in the days before polling. 

"In his heart and soul, Barack Obama was and remains a radical - stealthy, organizationally sophisticated, and when necessary tactically ruthless. The real Obama the man beyond the feel-good symbol is no mystery. He’s there for anyone willing to look. Sad to say, few are."

Here, former Times and Sunday Times editor and author of The American Century, Harold Evans, was scathing about the Obama media bias as he flagged up fair and reasonable concerns. 

"The US media have been captivated by Obama, at the expense of their curiosity and scepticism... All the mainstream national outlets were extraordinarily slow to check Obama's background."

From his questionable citizenship, through ACORN and his associations with Ayres, Wright, Khalidi and crook Tony Rezko, all have now been left up in the air in the hope they'll be quietly forgotten.

Even a casual look into his background, tells you that “hope” and “change” were never on his agenda. Like a slick snake-oil salesman, he was trying to be everything to everyone.

The mere fact that so many Americans have been taken in, all for the sake of an invented promise, a deluded dream and a misguided message of hope, sends mixed messages to the rest of the world.

Obama and McCain split nearly 50-50 on the popular vote (52%, 47% at the time of writing) but it was always going to be down to the State electoral colleges (349, 163). And that's where the Republicans took their eye off the ball, chasing instead the popular vote. 

The Obama victory today, shows that half American voters simply don't want to ask questions about the man who will be their president. 

It means that most Americans want to put a false hope in a nanny state, in which all is taken care for them by the magical Wizard of Oz. 

It means they are happy to destroy the US and the core principles of freedom and liberty. 

It means they have put their faith in a man who has deliberately whipped up the race card for selfish political advantage at home. And sent a confused and unstable message abroad. 

Choosing McCain, would have salvaged a few crumbs of dignity and tradition. Instead, Obama deals a death blow to America. 

Along the way the Orange Party has been inundated with visitors from the US and beyond and made many friends and many enemies. 

Now all the arguments against Obama are firmly in the public domain and out there, in past posts here and in the blogsphere. 

If the US still has a healthy soul in there somewhere, its citizens will now do the right thing and question, question, question, while they wait for the worm to turn.

God Bless America. And God help her now.

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Evans Insight Damns Obama Bias

It has taken journalist, author and former Sunday Times editor, Harold Evans, to have the guts to tell it as it really is over the Obama sham. Writing in the Guardian, Evans delivers a scathing attack on media bias and lack of objectivity and fairness. But even Evans only scratches the surface. 

As an investigative journalist who admired Evans Sunday Times 'Insight' days, before the Murdoch take-over, Evans views on the Obama media coverage chime with those of the Orange Party. 

In an article published in the Guardian's Comment is Free, Evans bemoans the bias: 

"What's troubling to anyone old-fashioned enough to care about standards in journalism is the news coverage in mainstream media. Forget the old notions of objectivity, fairness, thoroughness, and so on. The nastiest rumours on both sides haven't been published, but the coverage has been slavishly on the side of "the one".

His article ranges and rages over issues from the persecution of Clinton in the Primaries, through the fanatical obsession by many in the media over Obama's charisma which has killed curiosity and scepticism, to the lack of checks on Obama's background: 

"They wouldn't investigate the Reverend Jeremiah Wright connection for fear of being accused of racism. They wouldn't explore Obama's dealing with the corrupt, now convicted, Chicago businessman Tony Rezko. Now the LA Times refuses to release a possibly compromising video, which shows Obama praising Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi at a 2003 banquet, saying its promises to its source prevent it from doing so."

Evans views are shared by a new study which reveals how media bias favours Obama, reported by Breitbart.

The Orange Party first became aware of this unease back in early June and questioned the growing media obsession with Obama in this innocuous post asking if we were being manipulated by Obama and whether he was just too good to be true.

Now this, from a Democrat insider working for the Obama campaign, has been posted on an independent US political website, Savagepolitics. The Orange Party has no reason to doubt its authenticity:

"Put simply, you are being manipulated. That was and is the job – to manipulate you (the electorate) and the media (we already had them months ago). Our goal is to create chaos with the other side, not hope. I’ve come to the realisation (as the campaign already has) that if this comes to the issues, Barack Obama doesn’t have a chance. His only chance is to foster disorganisation, chaos, despair, and a sense of inevitability among the Republicans. It has worked up until now."

Evans is credited with introducing the crusading investigative style of reporting to upmarket UK newspapers during his 14 years as editor of the Sunday Times. Most notably the Thalidomide scandal, exposing Soviet spy Kim Philby and the publication of the famous Crossman diaries.

If no-one will listen to Evans, who the heck will they listen to.

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Obama's The Loser In Down and Dirty Campaign

With much of the media fawning over Obama like a bunch of demented high school kids, the McCain campaign has finally come out fighting and Obama has fallen into the trap. 

The campaign is getting down and dirty. McCain is having to do what the media should have been doing a long while ago - holding a candle up to the characters of both candidates and probing for weaknesses. 

Until now, the Obama campaign has kept its cool. Generally they've risen above the claims. 

Links with terrorist, Ayes, black power pastor, Wright and crook, Rezo were cast aside as lies and smears. And, with the media backing, they go away with it.

Palin's attack, accusing Obama of "palling around" with unrepentant former Weather Underground terrorist, William Ayers, brought a swift rebuttal. That's to be expected. But they then followed it through with counter-claims. A bad move from the Obama camp, it played into McCain's hands. 

It was a weak attack. McCain was one of five senators investigated 20 years ago by the Senate over Arizona tycoon Charles Keating, who was convicted of fraud after his bank collapsed.

But McCain's Keating and Palin's own 'Troopergate' are spot news. Headlines today, forgotten tomorrow. But it gives the McCain camp the excuse to hit back even harder. And Obama has more to lose.

It was observed here a while ago that the McCain strategy is all in the timing. First talk up the strengths of your candidate's character - a Vietnam war hero - then demolish the character of the opponent. 

With a month to go and flagging in the polls, the McCain team can unleash its final shots in a tightly controlled campaign grid. 

Links with Ayers and the Annenberg Foundation was the first shot, despite the media's best efforts to play down Ayres as just a "hippy radial". 

This was a Weatherman - a domestic terrorist whose bombing campaign struck fear into the heart of the US establishment at the time of the Vietnam war. Obama served on a charity board with Ayers. His links to him are much more than "a guy who lives in my neighbourhood.’' 

More of Obama's dodgy Chicago characters won't be far behind. Attack-dog Palin has already said voters should pay more attention to Obama's relationship with his former church pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. By voters, she means the McCain campaign.

Expect more on Obama’s key role in Ayers’s Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), his two-decade membership of a Black Power church and his relationship with fraudster, Tony Rezko, along with Obama's true source of funding and most importantly, his background and eligibility to run for president. 

Counter attacks with revelations over skeleton's in both Palin's and McCain's cupboards pale into insignificance. 

Both sides are getting down and dirty and that's just how it should be when you are about to elect the most powerful person on the planet. 

Tonight both presidential candidates square up for round two of their TV debates. 

This election will be decided on the trust and the strength of character of both candidates in the closing few weeks of the campaign. 

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Palin Digs Heels Into Obama's Terrorist Links

Disturbing revelations over Obama’s background and terrorist links have been brought out into the open, as part of McCain's campaign to expose weakness in his character and fitness for US president, as the race for the White House enters its final month.

The attack comes from Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who has highlighted Obama's links with unrepentant former Weather Underground terrorist, William Ayers, which has been an open secret in the US Main stream media for some while. 

Palin's aides said the time had come to take the gloves off and dig the heels in. Expect more in the coming weeks. 

The US blogsphere is rife with details of Obama's links with Ayes which, with exceptions such as the Wall Street Journal, have been given only a passing reference by much of the Main stream media, which has firmly nailed its colours to the Obama mast and accepted him at face value.

The attacks on Obama's character chimes with TV ads by outside groups, questioning Obama's ties to Ayers, convicted former Obama fundraiser Antoin 'Tony' Rezko and Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Attack-dog Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with the former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign's effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.

Palin's reference was to Ayers, one of the founders of the group, the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including non-fatal explosions at the Pentagon and US Capitol, during the Vietnam War era. 

Obama served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has been at pains to play down this relationship, dismissing Ayers as just ‘a guy who lives in my neighbourhood,’ and ‘not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.’ 

Palin told a group of donors, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She also said, "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."

Ayers, the former Weatherman, became a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He founded the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) in conjunction with $50m funder, the Annenberg Foundation. Obama was brought in to be CAC's first chairman of the board. Trinity United Church of Christ, headed by Pastor Jeremiah Wright, also received funds. 

In the Wall Street Journal, Stanley Kurtz, writes that documents in the CAC archives make it clear that Ayers and Obama were partners in the CAC.

Kurtz has also been trying to discover just who appointed Obama to the CAC board.

One unsettled question is how Obama, a former community organiser fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation?

Kurtz here adds that Obama has sought to obscure the role Ayers played in choosing him to lead the CAC and also details how the CAC tried to obstruct Kurtz’s inquiries by blocking his access to the records.

Nor is the relationship with Ayers the only question-mark over Obama’s associations with organisations specifically designed to put Obama in the White House, as WorldNetDaily and Global Labor and Politics reveal.

Questions over Obama's background and links with dodgy Chicago characters, have been raised by the Orange Party on a number of occasions. What is startling is that if any other candidate had even a fleeting relationship with Ayers, his presidential bid would have ended before it even began. 

Yet details have emerged about Obama’s key role in Ayers’s CAC and its funding of radical groups, his two-decade membership of a Black Power church and his relationship with fraudster, Tony Rezko.

Melanie Phillips, who has given a detailed account of Obama's links in the Spectator, sums it up well: 

"Obama appears to sit on a nexus between Marxist revolutionary activists, unrepentant former terrorists, Black Power racists, Chicago mobsters – oh, and a Saudi who is trying to buy up America. And yet despite all of this, virtually no-one in the mainstream media is asking any questions. Has there ever been a more staggering, surreal and scary race to the White House?"

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Obama's Not The Messiah, Just A Very Clever Boy

By the end of the day, Obama Superstar's anointment at the Mile High stadium will be yesterday's news. As the Washington Post puts it, 'more pageantry than politics'. News moves fast in presidential elections and by November, the Democratic convention could go down as one of the biggest political disasters in US history. 

After last night's Obama Superstar performance, the Republican target just got a whole lot easier. 

It boils down to two words. 'Hubris', of which Obama has a lot and 'Change', of which there was little evidence at the convention or in his speech, which had the familiar ring of Democrat speeches from the past. 

McCain knows that, the Clintons know that. Both are waiting for Obama to fall off his perch. And both words will figure in the election battle which now starts in earnest.

It's hard to know what the Democrats were thinking, as they were taken in by the hype of the Obama campaign and its theme of "Change". 

After returning from his "Audacity of Hype" tour, speaking to the multitudes in Berlin, the Chosen One headed to Hawaii for a vacation and became the "presumptuous, presumptive candidate". But that didn't matter to his slick marketing team.  

Then onto the convention first night. While the banners read the candidate of 'Change', it was dominated by homage to Edward Kennedy, who ran for president in 1980. 

Obama allowed the second night to be dominated by the candidate he defeated for the nomination in the Primaries and whose supporters felt bitter and cheated. Hillary Clinton, who has been on the political stage since 1992, gave the best speech of her political career.

No change either with Obama's selection of running mate, silver-haired loser, Joe Biden, who's been a senator for 35 years. 

While the convention was running, polls showed the expected 'Biden bounce' didn't happen. That should have given Obama quite a few points lead but instead it was McCain who edged ahead. 

Obama allowed the third night to be dominated by the charisma of former president Bill Clinton, who's been around since 1988. Again, just where is the change?

Even after he knew he'd clinched the nomination, Obama allowed the Clintons to take over the convention and neither gave Obama their outright blessing as commander-in-chief. 

Throughout the four day Obamafest, words like hubris, arrogance and 'narcissistic celebrity candidate' were not too far behind. What's more, there are elements of Obama that voters are uneasy with. Like his house deal with Chicago crook, Tony Rezko. 

Onto Thursday and the spectacle of the 'Temple of Obama', timed for the 45th anniversary of King's "Dream" speech. No stuffy convention hall full of Democrat delegates - it's outside to the Invesco Fields stadium, a theatrical extravaganza before an adoring throng of more than 75,000 Obama faithful.

Democrats started to become decidedly uneasy and queasy that yesterday's outdoor spectacle may backfire. The opinion poll jury is still out on that one.

Pictures of 200,000 mesmerised followers in Berlin didn't help Obama's campaign. Older voters don't like all that celebrity stuff. An expensive theatrical stage-set in Denver doesn't work with working class voters. 

How does he get away with it? He's got the majority of the Main stream media on his side, that's how. 

Never mind the voters, never mind the opinion polls, this all makes great TV and great pictures - and they're happy to run with it. 

Last night's gut-wrenching spectacle was missing just one thing. You'd expect Terry Jones to run on stage shouting - "He's not the Messiah he's just a very clever boy." 

And that concludes Act One in the Life of Barry.

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