Daily Dolt

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 31, 2007 1 Comment

Perhaps Mr. Ailes Could Publicly Apologize

Apparently Obama’s team isn’t being nice to the poor people at Fox News. It seems that some of them are just innocent bystanders who are being hurt.

But most of all, Obama needs Fox News so he better play ball.

Let me remind everyone, Fox News reported a vicious and obviously false claim and have not issued a correction—they put it out there that Obama denied the report. There has been no apology and the best they can do is this:

So maybe there was no written apology, but at least John Moody, vice president for news at Fox, issued this missive to staff in his daily editorial note on Jan. 23: “For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this.”

It’s time for a blogger ethics panel. Seriously, the WaPo is saying that at least….

I’ve screwed up on one particular story that was false and particularly damaging had it been true…I apologized and corrected it. Fox News apparently doesn’t have the high standards of even ArchPundit.

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 26, 2007 7 Comments

Tom Roeser is making a good case for people who think he has lost his faculties.

A few days ago, Roeser insisted

This is the first occasion in modern times when matters of a personal biographical nature have been responded to-not by the candidate nor his official surrogates-but by unofficial media sources. John Kennedy was obliged to go to the Houston Ministerial Association and outline his views on Catholicism.

As I pointed out then, Axelrod already addressed the claims and is an official surrogate as is Robert Gibbs who is certainly an official surrogate.

Today, the goalposts move:

So, So-Called Austin Mayor, chances are good that you and your fellows have been sucker-bait for Mr. Axelrod because they want to end the speculation without getting their guy on the record thereby preserving the candidate’s deniability.

It’s a bit hard to tell how Obama could credibly deny some super secret revelation since Axelrod discussed the issue, Gibbs sent out a long detailed denial and most of all, Obama has given hundreds of interviews and speeches discussing his religious faith. In fact, one particular speech, the Keynote to A Call to Renewal, specifically dealt with his past faith and is much like Kennedy’s speech to the Houston Ministerial Association.

But best of all, Roeser leaves himself open to criticizing Obama on the issue as long as he feels like it no matter the total and complete lack of evidence:

But sometime they’re going to have to answer it head-on as John Kennedy did. Then, even if Obama answers it satisfactorily, he and they will still have been responsible for a bonehead play–because by ducking and relying on CNN and other outlets to do their work for them, thus heightening justifiable cynicism that they weren’t telling the truth, they worsened their problem for themselves.

The final difference is, of course, that Obama has never claimed to be a practicing Muslim and there is no evidence that he ever was. On the other hand, John Kennedy was a practicing Catholic.

Roeser reveals a bit more about himself than he intended though:

Given Obama’s middle name I maintain there is more to this story than we’ve been told.

That’s the crux of his argument. But he isn’t a degenerate liar and racist. Just ask him.

Then we get this gem:

Also it is plain knowledge that the leaks came not from Republican sources but roundabout from the squinty-eyed son of a squinty-eyed FDR interior secretary, Harold Ickes. Sweet asked Obama’s press secretary if the rumor was leaked by the Hillary forces. No, of course not! Give me and all of us a break.

Evidence please? How is this plain knowledge? Little voices in Tom’s head?

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 24, 2007 2 Comments

Tom Roeser:Degenerate Liar

Now that Lynn Sweet has reported that CNN has sent a reporter to Barack Obama’s old school and found that it is not teaching militant Islam, we are supposed to die of mortification and beg apologies for even questioning his educative background. Well, not me. This is the first occasion in modern times when matters of a personal biographical nature have been responded to-not by the candidate nor his official surrogates-but by unofficial media sources. John Kennedy was obliged to go to the Houston Ministerial Association and outline his views on Catholicism. Why is it that with only a few scant references in his writings, Barack Hussein Obama is allowed to scamper? Disdaining the asking of pertinent questions is in itself racism: the idea prevalent in those white liberals under 50 who missed the civil rights marches and must erect their own superficialities. I fully accept the blame for setting up the federal office that enacted the minority set-aside program-but I wanted it to last for only a decade. This virulent form of set-aside where it pertains to Barack Obama argues that any questions about his past must be set-aside, ergo the one who asks them is a racist.

Small problem. Obama and his people did answer the questions. In fact, Axelrod responded to Eric Zorn on the 19th.

Tom Roeser is an insufferable windbag without even a passing acquaintance with the truth.

The problem wasn’t that Obama and his operation wouldn’t answer the questions, it is that right wing gasbags like Roeser didn’t like the answer. Oh, and Obama wrote about it in a book. Details.

Daily Dolts

ArchPundit January 22, 2007 3 Comments

The Sun Times editors who allowed Mark Steyn’s column past the fact checking process. Steyn’s a moron and so I’m not really too worried about him being a dolt, he’s established himself as that brand. However, the Sun-Times should know better than to allow supposed ‘facts’ into a column they are publishing when the facts are incorrect.

The Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 19, 2007 8 Comments

Mike Allen:

BECK: Unfortunately, not all of it is going to look exactly like that masterpiece many Americans have painted in their heads. Mike Allen is Time magazine’s White House correspondent. Is Barack Obama the non-crazy Ross Perot, and we’re just on a first date with him?

ALLEN: Well, Glenn, all this talk of grilled caribou is making me hungry, but I’ll try to focus on the matter at hand. Glenn, you’re right. Senator Obama is smoking right now, no doubt about it. You’re right that none of those other candidates, Republicans or Democrats, are getting their picture with no shirt in People magazine as they try to have a beach vacation. And I think the Ross Perot analogy is a good one. You’re right that right now people are projecting onto Senator Obama what they hope to see in a politician. But, you know, that’s not a bad thing. And it’s certainly not a bad place for Senator Obama to be positioned.

The question, Glenn, is whether people like the idea of Senator Obama in the way that you’re describing, this sort of post-partisan, after November ’06, “why can’t we get along?” How will they feel as they learn more about Senator Obama, as they fill in the strokes, as you say? And, Glenn, that’s already starting to happen today.

There was an Associated Press story today about the liberal votes that Senator Obama took when he was a state senator in Illinois. Now, one of his colleagues points out to me that none of these are likely to hurt him in a Democratic primary, but there’s probably not many people who watched that clip of Senator Obama saying at the convention, “We worship an awesome God in the blue states, too,” who know that Senator Obama had 100 percent from Planned Parenthood when he was in the state legislature.

From the Call to Renewal Speech:

I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.

But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman’s sense of self, a young man’s sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

For those whining about triangulation, this is the point of that speech–to reframe the debate so morons like Allen understand many people of faith have different views on reproductive rights. In some cases that extends to abortion and even when it doesn’t it very often includes sensible sex education and contraception access.

Daily Dolt

ArchPundit January 18, 2007 3 Comments

An early winner with ABC’s Jake Tapper claiming Obama has no plan for Iraq (never mind the ‘winning’ phrase as the administration has no plan to ‘win’ Iraq).

Earlier in the report, after playing a portion of Obama’s video announcing his decision, Tapper suggested that Obama has no plan for Iraq, saying, “Left unanswered today: responses to tough questions on how to win the war in Iraq.” Tapper went on to note that, in 2002, Obama was “[r]allying against the [Iraq] war in Chicago,” but made no mention of several interviews Obama gave, including one on Nightline itself, in response to President Bush’s January 10 address, during which Bush called for 21,500 additional U.S. troops to be deployed to Iraq. On the January 10 edition of Nightline, Obama told co-host Terry Moran that the problem in Iraq is “political,” not “military,” and said that “[a] phased withdrawal is the only leverage we have to force that political accommodation.”

Not to mention he has given two long policy speeches on a plan for a phased withdrawal in a little over a year. Details, schmetails….

I currently have about 1000 Daily Dolts for Obama alone, but eventually we will get back to some sense of normalcy and other Illinois doltishness.