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Obama Misleads his Own Supporters

A Chicago radio program last night had on Stanley Kurtz, who has made it a mission to get the records for the Chicago Annenberg Fund, on whose board Barack Obama and William Ayers (Weather Underground) sat.

The Obama campaign emailed its supporters to disrupt the program, and suggested that Kurtz was a "slimy character assassin."

Now, I didn't listen to the program, and I have no idea what Kurtz's allegations are. If they're lies or distortions, there's no reason people can't call into a radio show to complain or try to disrupt it. It's a free country.

But notice how Obama misleads his own supporters:

It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves. At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies.

What is Obama's campaign asking for here? That the radio show host offer a rebuttal on every one of Kurtz's points/lies? Are they asking WGN staff to take up their cause against Kurtz?

Or are they asking WGN to allow for *someone else* to rebut the claims? Because if that's the case, WGN did that.

"He got into the files just yesterday, so we wanted to have him on to find out what he found. And, if at all possible, we wanted to get the Obama campaign, to get their side of the story," Christenson said. "That's why the uproar is kind of amazing, because we wanted the Obama campaign's take as well."

The show's producer said the calls dropped off after the show's first hour. He did not have a count of calls, but said it was "non-stop."

Obama's campaign has launched similar offensives against stations that have run campaign ads that it did not like.

The show's host repeatedly had the producer come on the air to note that they had begged and pleaded with the Obama campaign to come on the air to challenge Kurtz. They declined. Now, maybe they couldn't find a good person to rebut the charges; maybe they're true, or maybe they were busy with the convention.

But to tell your supporters that WGN needs to offer a rebuttal to Kurtz is thoroughly misleading. They *wanted* to. But the Obama campaign didn't provide anyone.

And it made his supporters look like fools, on the air.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on August 28, 2008 (boomark / email).