RW Media backing off "Obama MUST be secretly a Muslim"... and are now trying to pin it on Hillary

[ck4829]

On the January 19 editions of their radio programs, conservative talk show hosts Melanie Morgan, Lee Rodgers and Rush Limbaugh, as well as Fox News' John Gibson on the same day's edition of The Big Story, forwarded the accusation, originally published on the website InsightMag.com, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) was responsible for spreading information about Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) -- specifically, that Obama "spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." The article, bearing the headline "Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background," asserted that "researchers connected to Senator Clinton" disclosed the "details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past." Despite acknowledging near the end of his show that it "oesn't seem" that "Hillary's fingerprints (are) on the story," Gibson said earlier in that program that "(t)he New York senator has reportedly outed Obama's madrassa past."

None of the four radio or television hosts cited any evidence that Clinton was responsible for promoting the madrassa story, beyond the InsightMag.com article, which cited no one by name. On December 13, Jason Zengerle, editor of The Plank, the weblog of The New Republic, predicted that Republicans would "launch a savage and despicable whispering campaign against the guy (Barack Hussein Obama, etc.) and then blame it all on Hillary." Zengerle responded to the InsightMag.com article on January 18:

"The attribution on all this is broad enough ("political opponents within the Democratic Party"; "researchers connected to Senator Clinton") that I suppose this information about Obama could have originated with people in Clinton's orbit. But let's not forget where this information appeared. And let's be on the lookout for who goes on the cable shows and wonders whether "Barack Hussein Obama" is "The 'Manchurian' Madrassa Candidate." Something tells me it isn't going to be Hillary, or any liberal for that matter."

InsightMag.com is the successor to Insight on the News, a biweekly magazine published until April 2004 by News World Communications, the company controlled by Rev. Sun Myung Moon that also operates The Washington Times and the wire service United Press International. The website describes itself as a "weekly Internet news magazine."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701200003

[NewJeffCT]

1. This will be their M.O. for the next 12-15 months

Anything negative about Obama, Edwards, Gore, Clark, Richardson, etc, that has any sort of backlash will be attributed to somebody in Hillary's camp...

[blue cat]

2. They are trying to make HC look mean

that way women won't sympathize with her. They are making me have sympathy for her, and I'm for Kerry/Gore/Clark/Edwards and others before her.

[NewJeffCT]

3. not just mean

but, vicious and Machiavellian as well. Somebody that would do or say anything in her power mad desire to become president.

[Bitwit1234]

4. The republicans are scared sh*tless of Hillary

Since the day Bill Clinton beat bush sr for the presidency the republicans have waged a smear campaign that this country has never seen. It shows that the republicans are the most reprehensible bunch of individuals to people the country.

The thing that is most outrageous the whole world, gets the impression that real Americans are on a par with this bunch of crooks, liars and stealers that are in this bunch of psychotics.

[porphyrian]

8. If that's true, why have they been trying to frame her as our nominee...

...for over a year now? I don't trust it.

"It's a trick...get an axe." - Ash, Housewares

[journalist3072]

5. Last night my aunt said about Obama

"I don't know about Obama. I think he's a muslim." (Meaning she wouldn't vote for him if he's Muslim.)

So I responded by saying "So what if he were? Would you have a problem with that?" She said "Oh yes, I would."

I was absolutely astounded.

[Catch22Dem]

6. What if he were a xtian who had studied Islam?

Which sounds like the likely scenario. Is there some kind of problem with a person who has extensive knowledge of many faiths, but believes in one? I don't get it. I'm still hoping for the first atheist president, but believe me, I'm not holding my breath.

[MikeNearMcChord]

7. I think there may have been an atheist president

just as there are closeted atheists in congress, but like the character in the Spartacus remarked about the Roman gods, "Privately I believe in none of them, but publicly I believe in them all."

[Catch22Dem]

9. You're probably right, but

I want one in my lifetime who isn't in the closet.