CNN: CNN debunks false report about Obama

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN debunks false report about Obama
January 22, 2007

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.

Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.

Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and step-father and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school, but an aide said it was not a madrassa.

Insight attributed the information in its article to an unnamed source, who said it was discovered by "researchers connected to Senator Clinton." A spokesman for Clinton, who is also weighing a White House bid, denied that the campaign was the source of the Obama claim.

He called the story "an obvious right-wing hit job."

Insight stood by its story in a response posted on its Web site Monday afternoon.

The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and was also referenced by the New York Post, The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News and a number of political blogs....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/index.html

[Connie_Corleone]

1. I just saw the report on CNN. They did a good job debunking.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. What? CNN has actually started practicing "journalism"

again instead of just parroting what they've been told by the RNC?

Sakes alive!

[ThomCat]

3. Give them a moment.

It's a temporary aberration. :P

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. when their ratings tank, AND 66% hate bush? I think not.

the corpserate moguls and power brokers will do their best to co-opt the democrats, first by admitting, slightly, the error of their weighs, then by purchasing wholesale the souls of any indie pols who are ahead of any race.

[Dean Martin]

27. Yep

It's all about ratings and sponsorship. As GW sinks lower and lower and the Reps get lower ratings in general, CNN will start trying to favor the Dems. Only the idiots at Faux News will probably be stubborn and stupid enough to stay the RW course.

[Debi]

4. Well, remember

this piece of 'news' had an anti-Clinton slant.

So, while they did report that the BS about Obama was just that, they got to 'report' that Hillary Clinton's campaign was behind the intitial story :eyes:

Best of both worlds for CNN

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

5. Kick

[Turbineguy]

6. My Uncle taught school in Indonesia in the '40's and '50's

Maybe he was a secret radicial Muslim cleric? I always thought he was a Civil Engineer. Nah, I think my Aunt would have sussed that one.

[nolabels]

7. But there i was thinking the corporate media was trying to set Hilary up...........

for failure later on. Why would they be going after her so early, greed maybe :shrug:

[Kagemusha]

8. Do right wingers know not all Moslem schools are madrassas?

Or do they just have no idea there's any difference at all?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

10. yeah, the rest are French.

or worse, Democrat party.

[Igel]

16. The difference is hard to pin down.

I think of it as statistical.

I've heard of madrassahs that were top notch and taught much less Islam than the local Catholic school where I grew up did Catholicism/Xianity. The rest of the day is language, science, math.... But most madrassahs are shoddy, and many are Islamic indoctrination centers.

I've heard of "Muslim schools" (that wanted to avoid the stigma of 'madrassah' in English) that had half the day doing Islam, and the rest of the day was auxiliary--history (focus on Islam), Arabic (focus on Qur'aanic Arabic), science (focus on how accurate the Qur'aan was) ... Most "Muslim schools" are moderate madaris in disguise, but want to avoid the connotation "madrassah" has in English ... they'd just call themselves "schools", but they're not secular. Some distinctly distasteful madaris have mastered spin and taken to calling themselves "Muslim schools".

Fox's/Washington Times' "slur" dealt with connotations, not content; Obama's reply deals with form, not substance. Silly quibble.

"Igil went to a middle school."

"I most certainly did *not*! I went to a junior high."

[Kagemusha]

25. Thanks for the info.

Not surprising that it's not black and white.

[ktlyon]

11. Blaming Hillary to attack Obama sounds very Rovian

typical bullshit

[goforit]

12. Hanging out with the wrong crowd Hilary!!!

[rocktivity]

23. We have only Insight's word for it that the leak came from the Hillary camp

They could have made up that part of the story--I mean, Hillary's associates uncovered the story and gave it to Insight? Yeah, right. Or--hee hee--maybe someone from the Hillary camp set them up!

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[noonwitch]

30. I figured that this was not from Hillary's campaign

No one is going to go that negative in a primary this early on, at least no one sane.

[Miss Chybil]

17. Bingo. nt

[stillcool]

13. keeps the non-news in the non-news...

they can't talk about anything factual so they talk about each other's false news.

[EFerrari]

24. Omg, you're spot on.

And around we go.

[wisteria]

14. I saw that. I wish they would of been so kind to Kerry in 04, but the Obama story was wrong,

so I am glad they set the record straight.

[bklyncowgirl]

19. I agree, had the media done this sort of due diligence with Kerry he might be president today.

I'm glad to see it though. They also said that there was no factual basis for rumors that the Clinton campeign was behind the rumors.

Hopefully they and other news media will keep this up. Giving credit where credit is due this was good reporting by CNN.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

15. I heard someone say something today on the radio about Obama smoking cigarettes.

I wanted to call in and go, well, the Bushes are CHAIN SMOKERS. :shrug:
Duckie

[superconnected]

18. I watched Good Night, Good Luck last night so this sounds

strikingly familiar.

[rocktivity]

20. Obama was born in 1961

which means he was aged between six to ten when he lived in Indonesia. He's going be held responsible for decisions his parents made when he was aged six to ten?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Heck, he's being held responsible for the name he was given at birth.

So in short, yes.

[rocktivity]

21. dupe, sorry

n/t

[Doctor_J]

26. So has Beck been fired

for repeating this lie?

[aaronbees]

28. Let me get this freakin' straight....

CNN debunks this days later (and that is good), but in the meantime it's already been fodder on CNN programming like the bilge that racist Glenn Beck spews?

Hey, I'm glad this is debunked, but this type of stuff has already done the damage. Sickening. And over something that's totally a non-issue! No wonder Americans are delusional.

[HuffleClaw]

29. a perfect roveian ploy though

kills a whole passel o' birds with one stone

smears hillary and obama and cnn all at once, reinforcing the 'left-wing media' myth so crucial to them and pandering to far right bigotry while also knowing this will be mentioned over and over as time goes on.

[Strelnikov_]

31. Are they implying that Islam is like the Shingles, something that lies dormant

once exposed only to spring forth during a moment of stress, capturing mind and body?

What a bunch of whackjobs.

[Synnical]

32. Poll on right side of page - Who do you think is behind false reports?

Who do you think is behind false reports about Barack Obama's time at a Muslim school?

Right-wing opponents
65%

42553 votes

Left-wing opponents

35%

22999 votes

Total: 65552 votes