Florida anchor woman interviews Biden....Was she out of line? And since this interview, Obama's campaign sent the station a statement saying that they would likely not give an interview at this tv affiliate until after the election, at best.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Angry over a hard-nosed interview during which Barbara West of Orlando’s WFTV peppered Sen. Joe Biden with the kind of probing questions the pro-Obama mainstream media refuses to ask, the Obama campaign has completely banned the television station from future access and interviews.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, Biden was so disturbed by West's searching questions that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.
"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best, for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.
McGinnis said the Jill Biden cancellation was "a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West."
During the interview, West asked Biden: "Aren't you embarrassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?"
Biden appeared flustered by the question, but quickly gained his composure and denied that Obama had been close to ACORN.
Biden claimed that the campaign had not paid ACORN any money to register voters.
West did not challenge Obama on this point, though during the Democratic primary in Ohio, the Obama campaign had, in fact, paid more than $800,000 to an ACORN-backed group. West did note that Obama has worked with this group in the past. [See: Obama and ACORN: You Can Run But You Can't Hide].
West again stung Biden, asking him about Obama's statement to Joe the plumber that he planned to "spread the wealth around."
West queried: "A Gallup poll showed 84 percent of Americans prefer the government focus on improving economic conditions and creating more jobs in the U.S., as opposed to taking steps that distribute wealth. Isn't Senator Obama's comment a potentially crushing political blunder?"
Dodging the question, Biden attacked the Bush economic and tax policies and Sen. John McCain's tax program.
West bored in, quoting Karl Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," and asked Biden, "How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"
Biden appeared stunned and asked, "Are you joking? Is this a joke?"
He then insisted that despite Obama's declaration that he would spread the wealth around, Obama "is not spreading the wealth around."
West then asked Biden about his now-famous statement that Obama would be tested and would not be able to stand up to the challenge without help.
"Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America's days as the world's leading power are over?" West asked.
An obviously annoyed Biden responded by asking West who was writing her questions. West is a veteran TV news journalist who had worked as Peter Jennings' producer at ABC News.
Biden responded that whoever is elected will be tested, and then attacked McCain's record.
West returned to the “spreading the wealth” question, asking Biden what he'd "say to the people who are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?"
Biden again ducked the question, saying only that he didn't know anybody who thinks that, "except the far-right wing of the Republican Party."
WFTV news director Bob Jordan told the Sentinel: "When you get a shot to ask these candidates, you want to make the most of it. They usually give you five minutes."
He added that political campaigns in general pick and choose the stations they like. And stations often pose softball questions during the satellite interviews.
"Mr. Biden didn't like the questions," Jordan said. "We choose not to ask softball questions. "
Sources: Sarkozy views Obama stance on Iran as 'utterly immature'
By Barak Ravid
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel's government.
Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate's stance on Iran as "utterly immature" and comprised of "formulations empty of all content."
Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West's proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West.
According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country's policy toward Iran, that would be "very problematic."
Until now, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany have tried to maintain a united front on Iran. But according to the senior Israeli source, Sarkozy fears that Obama might "arrogantly" ignore the other members of this front and open a direct dialogue with Iran without preconditions.
Following their July meeting, Sarkozy repeatedly expressed disappointment with Obama's positions on Iran, concluding that they were "not crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open," the Israeli source said. Advisors to the French president who held separate meetings with Obama's advisors came away with similar impressions and expressed similar disappointment.
According to the Israeli source, Sarkozy plans to begin intensive negotiations with the new American administration, regardless of whether it is headed by Obama or Republican Sen. John McCain, even before the new president takes office in January, with the goal of persuading him to continue the current policy on Iran.
But Sarkozy's pessimism does not stem only from Obama's stance; it also stems from the overall behavior of the international community toward Iran's nuclear program, and particularly its inability to agree on a fourth round of Security Council sanctions against the Islamic Republic. This foot-dragging will make it impossible to effect a change in Iran's nuclear policy, Sarkozy believes.
The French intelligence community believes that Iran has already obtained about 40 percent of the enriched uranium it would need for its first bomb, and that at its current rate, it will obtain the rest of the uranium it needs in the spring or summer of 2009.
However, French agencies are divided over what Iran is likely to do once it has this uranium. One view is that the Iranians will immediately make a nuclear bomb, in order to demonstrate their capability. The other is that Iran will continue enriching uranium without making a bomb - at least until it has enough enriched uranium for several bombs.
LA Times Refuses to Release Tape of Obama Praising Controversial Activist Video of farewell party for alleged PLO worker shows Obama toasting 'friend and dinner companion' with questionable past.
FOXNews.com Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Rashid Khalidi, a professor and activist tied to the PLO, was feted by Barack Obama at a farewell dinner for the Palestinian activist. (AP photo)
The Los Angeles Times is refusing to release a videotape that it says shows Barack Obama praising a Chicago professor who was an alleged mouthpiece for the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was a designated terrorist group in the 1970s and '80s.
According an LA Times article written by Peter Wallsten in April, Obama was a "friend and frequent dinner companion" of Rashid Khalidi, who from 1976 to1982 was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, which was operating in exile from Beirut with the PLO.
In the article -- based on the videotape obtained by the Times -- Wallsten said Obama addressed an audience during a 2003 farewell dinner for Khalidi, who was Obama's colleague at the University of Chicago, before his departure for Columbia University in New York. Obama said his many talks with Khalidi and his wife Mona stood as "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
Khalidi is currently the Edward Said professor of Arab Studies at Columbia. A pro-Palestinian activist, he has been a fierce critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an "apartheid system" of government. The PLO advocate helped facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early '90s, but he has denied he was ever an employee of the group, contradicting accounts in the New York Times and Washington Times.
The LA Times told FOXNews.com that it won't reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi's farewell party, nor will the newspaper release it. Spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the paper is not interested in revisiting the story. "As far as we're concerned, the story speaks for itself," she said.
The newspaper reported Tuesday evening in a story on its Web site that the tape was from a confidential source.
"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," the Times' editor, Russ Stanton, said. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."
In recent months Obama has distanced himself from the man the Times says he once called a friend. "He is not one of my advisers. He's not one of my foreign policy people," Obama said at a campaign event in May. "He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."
But on the tape, according to the Times, Obama said in his toast that he hoped his relationship with Khalidi would continue even after the professor left Chicago. "It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table ... [but around] this entire world."
A number of Web sites have accused the Times of purposely suppressing the tape of the event -- which former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn reportedly attended.
Sullivan said she would not give details of what else may be on the tape, adding that anyone interested in the video should read the newspaper's report, which was its final account.
"This is a story that we reported on six months ago, so any suggestion that we're suppressing the tape is absurd -- we're the ones that brought the existence of the tape to light," Sullivan said.
The Los Angeles Times endorsed Obama for president on October 19.
I’ve been checking out different Web sites, such as politifact.com and factcheck. com. If people would look up McCain’s statement that “Bill Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together,” they will find that the founder of Annenberg Challenge — the project Obama was supposedly on with Ayers — was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Nixon, and that his widow has endorsed McCain. Politifact.com found that this statement was not only false, but malicious. I also went to http://www.wikipedia.org and read what the Annenberg Challenge was all about — something very benefi cial to many schools. If I had a chance to work on such a project, I would have been very proud of the organization.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel's government.
Agree or not...when did we start listening or taking advice from France?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
A Guy named Joe, who happens to be a plumber with ambitions for a bigger business, questioned and challenged a Guy named Barack, who happens to be running for President of the US/Leader of the Free World…
And within 24 hours the Media has given us more information about Joe's life than th ey've given us about Barack's life in the past 18 months.
Thanks to a diligent press corps, we now know about Joe's professional licensing status, his income tax situation, his employment history, his domestic squabbles, his voting record, everything associated with his personal identity; his education…. It's probably been reported somewhere whether he wears boxers or briefs.
Thanks to a lazy press corps…We still don't know what grades Obama made in college; how he got into Harvard; when he met Bill "the bomber" Ayers; when he stopped doing illegal drugs; his medical history; whether he still smokes cigarettes; the extent of his affiliation with socialist/communist organizations; why he's no longer a licensed attorney; whether he lied on his Bar application;----
Whether he'd qualify for a security clearance if he were just an "average Joe;" what passport he used to travel to Pakistan in 1981; who his ex-girlfriends are; whether he was or still is an Indonesian citizen; why his Kenyan grandmother insists he was born there; whether he was ever legally named Barry Soetoro or anything else besides Barack Hussein Obama-----;
Why he needed the help of a crook to purchase his family home; where he was on Nov. 6 and 7, 1999; what the long-version of his birth certificate says; why he helped an anti-American, pro-Islamic candidate for Kenyan President against US interests; why he listened to Rev. Wright's sermons for 20 years; how many times he took his kids to a Rev. Wright sermon; what he actually did as chair of the Annenberg Challenge; the depth of his relationship with ACORN… Well, you get the idea.
But, really, I am SO relieved that the Mainstream Media has done its job vetting Joe The Plumber, who is NOT running for public office, but who had the AUDACITY to challenge Barack Hussein Obama, who wants my vote for President of the United States of America."
Obama Lays Plans to Kill Expectations After Election Victory Confident in an Election Day win, the campaign looks to lower supporters' expectations on concerns their hopes of 'change' are unrealistic, a senior aide says
By Tim Reid, The Times of London
Barack Obama's senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next week's election, amid concerns that many of his euphoric supporters are harboring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.
The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of "hope" and "change" are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.
One senior adviser told The Times that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, "so there's not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair."
The aide said that Obama himself was the first to realize that expectations risked being inflated.
In an interview with a Colorado radio station, Obama appeared to be engaged already in expectation lowering. Asked about his goals for the first hundred days, he said he would need more time to tackle such big and costly issues as health care reform, global warming and Iraq.
"The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference," he said. He has also been reminding crowds in recent days how "hard" it will be to achieve his goals, and that it will take time.
"I won't stand here and pretend that any of this will be easy -- especially now," Obama told a rally in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday, citing "the cost of this economic crisis, and the cost of the war in Iraq." Obama's transition team is headed by John Podesta, a Washington veteran and a former chief-of-staff to Bill Clinton. He has spent months overseeing a virtual Democratic government-in-exile to plan a smooth transition should Obama emerge victorious next week.
The plans are so far advanced that an Obama Cabinet has been largely decided upon, with the expectation that most of his senior appointments could be announced shortly after election day.
No kidding,,,,they're just fluff n stuff speeches.....folks wake up.....there are no cheerleaders for you except those that sit across from you at your kitchen table or share a beer or jumpstart your car etc......when down in a hole and feeling small.....the campaign speeches are the last thing you need......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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