Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Fighting Smears and Gwen Ifill

An interesting nugget of information appears on the Fight the Smears website of Barack Obama. FactCheck.org is verifying that Barack Obama was once a citizen of Kenya. Obama had Kenyan citizenship until 1982.

From the Obama website: "When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom's dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.'s children."

Since Sen. Obama has neither renounced his U.S. citizenship nor sworn an oath of allegiance to Kenya, his Kenyan citizenship automatically expired on Aug. 4, 1982."

This was brought up due to the confusion over Obama's refusal to release his original birth certificate. A Clinton supporter, Phil Berg, in Philadelphia filed a lawsuit over it. On August 21, just four days before the beginning of the Democrat convention, the lawsuit was filed as a method of removing Obama from the November ballot, with the specific claim he was born in Kenya and not the U.S.

This is brought to light by NewsBusters. A day after the lawsuit was filed, a federal judge denied a motion of a temporary restraining order that Berg requested. Berg's lawsuit demands Obama release the long version of his original birth certificate, not the one currently on the website, thought by many to be a photoshopped version.

So, rather than cooperate and release the full birth certificate, the candidate claiming to be all about transparency has forced his smears website to bring his Kenyan citizenship into the mix. It's an interesting fact laid out there now.

Remember when the Democrats tried to make the case that John McCain was not eligible to be President since he was born in Panama while his father was stationed there?

Any press coverage on this information?

The McCain campaign has launched a fight the smears website for Sarah Palin, too. Go here:
www.johnmccain.com/palintruthfiles/ for information.

The moderator for the VP debate this week is Gwen Ifill. The PBS anchor is not qualified to be the moderator but that doesn't matter. Ifill is as in the tank for Obama as any of the media, and this story proves it. She has a book coming out on January 20, 2009 - inauguration day - called "The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama." Her publisher has wasted no time putting out YouTube clips as Ifill gushes over Obama and his speechwriter, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

You may remember Ifill recently published a slobbering article for Essence magazine titled, "The Obamas: Portrait of an American Family."

From an article here: "During the Republican National Convention, the PBS ombudsman fielded numerous complaints about Ifill's coverage of Sarah Palin's speech. Wrote Brian Meyers of Granby, Conn.: "I was appalled by Gwen Ifill's commentary directly following Gov. Sarah Palin's speech. Her attitude was dismissive, and the look on her face was one of disgust. Clearly, she was agitated by what most critics view as a well-delivered speech. It is quite obvious that Ms. Ifill supports Obama as she struggled to say anything redemptive about Gov. Palin's performance. I am disappointed in Ms. Ifill's complete disregard for journalistic objectivity."

Playing the race card - a tactic so frequent by the Obama campaign while accusing the Republicans of doing it - Ifill said, "No one's ever assumed a white reporter can't cover a white candidate." Well, no, but it's not Ifill's color, as she well knows. It's her lack of professionalism and her lack of reporting skills.

Ifill has no business moderating the Biden/Palin debate. She expects Obama to be the next President and she is waiting in the wings to cash in. She clearly now has a commercial interest in the outcome of this election. She should no longer be a moderator and she should step down from her job at PBS.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It should be interesting to see how Ifill handles her role as moderator. Given that it is clear she is a Democrat, I wonder how she did at moderating the 2004 VP debates.

Karen Townsend said...

Kris:
It was said after the 2004 debate that she made time demands on Cheney's answers that she didn't do on Edwards. She's not so good at masking her disdain.

Anonymous said...

I am really saddened that they have chosen her. She has an agenda. She wants her book to sell so that means she cannot be an objective moderator. I hope I am wrong, but she is not a fair person. I at one time respected her for her "fair and balanced" - but of late she has lost any respect and or trust I held for her.

Good write-up Karen! :)

Incognito said...

am so sick of this all... i can't wait for it all to be over. am trying to detach, while still trying to get the info out. not easy to do.

i find it despicable that no-one seems to care about the gaffes Biden has made..

sigh.