October Surprise
This would be a heck of one, though at the usual rate of discussing Obamian negativity, if there’s anything to this we’ll be halfway through Obama’s first 100 days before it advances beyond tabloid. National Enquirer: Obama Sex Perv Scandal.*
A lot of people thought Hill hung in as long as she did because she knew something. Something she didn’t want to bring up. NE’s been on a roll, except none of it has really gone anywhere, and its confirmation rate is spotty. Edwards’ affair and love child … he was history before the affair thing panned out, and correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think the kid issue has entirely been resolved one way or the other. Palin affair, a tad remotely triangulated, a one-off not picked up in the mainstream, and that can’t be for lack of trying. Anyway, if it turns out there is any awkward palling around that might sway Americans in the privacy of the voting booth, anything that needs to be discussed, here’s an idea. Just say “Frank” was pseudonym for Bill Ayers.
Do me a favor and kindly avoid the temptation to engage in flights of fancy in comments.
* A couple of minor points:
“Halfway through Obama’s first 100 days” is probably highly charitable. More like halfway through the first term, and then only in a thumbsucker magazine piece that buries it. Though there is the possibility oblique dismissive references could emerge earlier in newspaper articles examining the political crimes against the people of the McCain-Palin Gang of Two.
Semantic point, but as a Tabloid-American who works at a newspaper that sometimes uses the term “Perv” in headlines … in reference to sexual predators/public menaces … I’d like to note “sex perv” is redundant. For people who want to know why this story doesn’t make the mainstream, there is a very simple answer. Anonymously sourced reports in supermarket tabloids have to be treated with a high degree of caution.
However, when those supermarket tabloids have shown they are capable of breaking explosive news about a candidate’s character, then the question becomes, what is stopping major American news organizations from taking the cadres of reporters currently up in Alaska digging for Palin dirt … and apparently not finding any … and diverting them to, say, Hyde Park to find out exactly how much palling around Obama did with the unrepentant ex-terrorist and whether, as has been suggested, he employed him as a ghost writer; as well as putting some resources into the Aloha State to find out what gives with the mentor only known as “Frank.” Fair’s fair, and I haven’t seen any evidence that anything like the media excavating resources devoted to the GOP veep candidate’s home turf have been applied to the Democratic presidential candidate, where the surveyors simply have cast an eye on the ground, dug a test pit or two and declared it to rest on solid bedrock. As Reynolds notes re funky contributions, it’s amazing what you can get away with when the press is totally in the tank.
Discussion:
Riehl can’t help slipping in one joke that could be the start of a good late-night jelly-jarful of whiskey-fueled dirty limerick. But he’d like the candidate to define “lasting.”
Newly moonbatted wingnut John Cole: Nothing to see here. Can you believe those wingnuts?
Joyner: The sex perv was Davis, not Obama.
Hold up, we have a mainstream, named source hit. Confederate Yankee excerpts UK Telegraph. Curiously, the Telegraph headlines with “alleged Communist” and waits 11 graphs to get into the perv part. I guess we can now start asking more urgently why all those pick-and-shovel teams haven’t been shifted to Hawaii and why we don’t have shouted questions about mentoring in Obama press conferences.
Suggested line of excuse for Obama campfollowers: That’s so last August.
And: Red-baiting!
And: Palling around? Please.
Surber suggests it’s too low a blow, leave it alone.
OK, let’s review. Attended Muslim school in Jakarta. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (I attended a DoD-sponsored school in Bangkok. Does that make me an American-Imperialist war criminal? … no, though the experience of my formative years contributed greatly to that). Mentored by a suspected commie pervert in underage late-night drinking/dirty limerick slams.
The latter can be dismissed as youthful indiscretion, innocence, none of his fault, nothing that can be held against him. But with the subsequent adult pattern … 20 years in the pews of a frothing America-bashing bigot and the professional palling around with an unrepentant ex-terrorist … you begin to see what they mean when with that “doesn’t look like us” line. Turns out it’s not a racial cue at all.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:18 am on Tuesday, October 14, 2008
4 Responses to “October Surprise”
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October 14th, 2008 at 11:03 am
There is plenty to dislike and distrust about Barack Obama without delving into tabloid innuendo.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Bloggers had this figured out a long time ago. I don’t think people care too much about it, especially because of Obama’s age at the time.
It would be worthwhile if it could be proven that Obama met Ayers before he says he did, because it would catch him in a bold faced lie, and a pretty telling one at that.
This Davis thing is different. While it’s interesting in a “connections” sort of way, it would be a big mistake to take this as a legitimate line of attack on Obama.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Is talking a bunch of Barney like being too Frank?
Cheers
October 24th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
[...] But there are other facts out there that I learned via Tim Blair. Another site in his blogroll is Jules Crittenden, who reported on a National Enquirer story about Frank Marshall Davis that pointed out what a sex perv he was. From this, I learned that Obama was “mentored by a suspected commie pervert in underage late-night drinking/dirty limerick slams.“ [...]