Is it me, or does it seem as if prominent African-Americans are just all over Obama's case this week? Or is the media just making it seem that way?
Weeks after the incident occurred the Reverend Al Sharpton boldly steps forth and rises to the defense of Jesse Jackson after the latter's vulgar off-air remarks about Obama - in some kind of strange effort to make them both seem more relevant to the current political dialog than they actually are.
Unfortunately both bizarre media missteps only had the effect of making them both seem slightly less relevant and much more desperate.
MSNBC Anchor Tamron Hall (pictured above) is catching heat for a glaring journalistic blunder according to an article posted on the Media Matters for America Website on Monday, July 28th.
MediaMatters.org reports that during a Monday July 28, 2008 broadcast MSNBC Live anchor used a story about a John McCain political sound bite to distort the fact that Barack Obama had visited wounded troops while in Iraq. She repeats the false accusation from the McCain camp without any reference to the actual facts of the case.
The number of her specific commentary points totally conflicting with established facts are so numerous you really have to read the Media Matters piece (click the link above) yourself to appreciate one example of the evaporation of the most basic journalistic principles.
She and MSNBC 's crack research team were apparently totally unaware that Obama HAD in fact visited wounded US troops in the Green Zone along with other Congressional representatives during his trip to Iraq, has visited wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on multiple occasions and also made personal phone calls to wounded soldiers at the huge US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany where most seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are flown.
Rumors abound that McCain quietly used Pentagon connections to prevent the Obama camp from flying to Landstuhl - a trip that had been planned for weeks.
Hall actually contradicts a statement MSNBC's OWN chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell made on July 25th that Obama DID visit troops in Iraq!
Check out this video of Hall answering questions at length from Hardball's Chris Matthews, she manages to simultaneously earnestly cement her authority on the story by recounting her experience as a member of the same Chicago Church Obama attended, headed of course by Reverend Wright - and also slam Obama on the Reverend Wright issue.
After a rather long-winded answer the camera pulls back and Andrea Mitchell is one of the Hardball panelists; the video is worth the look on Andrea's face.
I certainly am not suggesting that Hall or any other African-American for that matter doesn't have every right to express their opinion of Obama; but not at the expense of the truth. I mean come on, that doesn't even qualify as analysis.
Call me crazy but he's proved himself a capable and worthy political opponent and a savvy politician; he's kept it above the belt, if you're going to criticize the man at least get your facts straight.
"Crabs in a bucket." My Grandmom might've said. "Crabs in a bucket."
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