The speculation game: the press and Obama
Would a photo of Obama with Louis Farrakhan have made any difference in the results of the 2008 election had it been published and not suppressed?
A journalist announced last week that he will publish a photograph of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that he took in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, but did not make public because he believed it would have “made a difference” to Obama’s political future.
The photographer, Askia Muhammad, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy.”
“But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was President, it was kept under cover,” Muhammad said.
Asked whether he thought the photo’s release would have affected Obama’s presidential campaign, Muhammad said, “I insist. It absolutely would have made a difference.”
Here’s the photo:
Photographer Muhammad certainly has gotten a remarkable amount of publicity from his belated admission, but I beg to differ with his evaluation. I submit that it would not have mattered. First of all, a photo is practically meaningless. Politicians pose with people all the time, and it doesn’t necessarily indicate much. The photo was taken in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, which means that most of the black members of Congress were there.
So, big deal. It could even have been used to cry “racism” at those who criticized the meeting.
But even more importantly, if Obama’s two-decades long and very close relationship with Rev. Wright didn’t hurt him, a passing meeting with Farrakhan most definitely wouldn’t have done so.
What I think is more interesting is that the photo was suppressed, and that we’re in a “now it can be told” mode. I guess none of it matters anymore. But I’d love to hear from the people at the LA Times who have continued to sit on a certain video that contained statements by Obama:
John McCain’s campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release a video of a party for a prominent Palestinian activist that Barack Obama attended in 2003.
The Times described the going-away party for former University of Chicago professor, and Obama friend, Rashid Khalidi, in a story in April. The story reported that Palestinians thought they might have a friend in Obama because of his friendships in that community, despite the fact that his positions have never been particularly pro-Palestinian.
“A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi,” said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, citing Obama’s friendship with Khalidi, who is now a professor at Columbia University.
He said the video could, among other things, show how Obama responded to a poem recited at the party accusing Israel of “terrorism” and warning of consequences for U.S. support for Israel, which Goldfarb described as “hate speech.”
Khalidi is a controversial figure, reviled by pro-Israel activists, though not a marginal one. A former professor at the University of Chicago, he’s now Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia, and respected by many in academia. He’s been criticized most for saying that Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli occupation and has been described as a former P.L.O. spokesman, a label he has denied.
The media protected Obama and fought his battles for him. There is little question that it mattered in general, whether or not the photo of Farrakhan would have made any difference.
I can hear what would have been said now. “Hey, who doesn’t have a photo or two in his photo album that someone’s going to fault.” I don’t understand all the fuss and muss. We knew he was being protected.
It wouldn’t have made any difference. Mr. Obama had enough strengths to be a plausible candidate. And he had a great benefit from timing: the general public who would accept a black guy as President; an unpopular war in Iraq; and then the global financial crisis in September 2008.
Any Democrat would have done well in that year. Even Hillary Clinton might have won, had she not lost the primary to Mr. Obama. She’s probably the only one who is really angry that the photo was suppressed, as she could have used it during the primary to attack him.
You are probably right that the photo alone would not have made a difference. What would have made a difference would have been overall honest reporting on 1) Obama’s leftist/radical background and connections of which this was only a small part and 2) his lack of accomplishment and leadership experience.
Didn’t happen then.
Won’t happen now.
Won’t happen in the future.
Obama’s resume was always only skin deep and that’s all it had to be.
It wouldn’t have made any difference. Remember at the time people were enamored with the smooth talking Greek column reverb on high like he was talking like God – and people like Hannity exposed the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers but not enough people cared.
I pointed out to people at the time his comments about taking oil profits, and people just guffawed.
Now with Dinesh’s movies and the mask has come off about his dictator tendencies (with the FBI and NSA and DHS and IRS) – it still doesn’t matter to many. People just think he cared and wanted to do good.
Changing people’s opinion is a long game.
If Oprah ran she would win.
If Michelle Obama ran she would win.
No matter how many words we say or write – they will win.
But over time and through the course of events, people wake up with events at Evergreen College, with protests in front of Schumer’s home, with economic data after the tax cut. But the minds that are changed are only small percentages. .01 % here. Another .01% there. Whoever happened to pay attention that day beyond the headlines may go down rabbit holes and become “woke”.
My big question is how does a Jennifer Rubin go down the wrong rabbit hole? Most people become conservative when they research bigly.
Dershowitz said he’d not have campaigned for Obama if he’d seen the photo. That presumes he would have needed to photo to know what was up. Pretty slow, Dersh is.
The MSM obeys their orders, like a good totalitarian state, a branch division of the Deep State, which is not as disorganized as people might have fantasized and wished for.
The REpublicans have to hash out and and debate who gets what part of the pie, which causes vulnerabilities and weakness when it comes time to do a party vote or veto or some other stonewall technique.
The fundamental problems of democracy are numerous, the most notable being Americans believe democracy is a good thing and part of their heritage.
The elohim known as Satan or Lucifer, a Son of God equivalent to the status of the pre mortal angel that was later known as the Messiah or the Christ, also had a little interesting problem with a majority vote. 2/3rds of the Divine council voted one the plan of Yehovah/Jehovah, the elohim or angel known as the Christ later on. 1/3rd voted for Lucifer’s plan. Lucifer got voted off the island and kicked out.
That is why whenever there is a 51% vote on anything, Lucifer and the other elohim will find some way to stick it to humanity, which are still slaves of the elohim by legal jurisdiction due to Babel.
Lucifer, because he is still pissed off 6000+ years later that humanity’s elohim allies voted him out of Heaven, he is going to find all kinds of ways to sabotage the majority. Like abortion, using the majority to kill the majority. Classic tactic.
I also agree that that photo alone would not have mattered. What might have mattered is if McCain had hammered Obama about his 20 year associations with the Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, but he refused to do negative campaigning.
I wondered at the time if Obama might be anti-American, but just couldn’t believe it at the time. Obama’s second term proved to me just how naive I was.
I now believe Obama’s mission was to save the world from the USA – just the opposite of what the POTUS’s mission is supposed to be
on another note..
Barry and Honey Sherman
Though it would have been a closer election, Obama would have been elected in 2008 even had the media not covered for him.
That’s because the election of Obama was not about him personally, it was about white virtue signaling, party loyalty and for blacks, racial solidarity.
An empty slogan-spouting nothing of a human being + adoring MSM + race obsession vs soft & squishy McCain, then Romney with his delicate sensitivities = invincibility.
Ironically, the Human Genome Project announced its conclusive finding that race does not actually exist in 2007.
DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another.
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml
It wouldn’t have mattered.
Yet, somehow, Trump being within 50 miles of David Duke was enough to forever tar him as a white supremacist.
If it weren’t for double standards, the media would have no standards at all.
I agree with your assessment.
It does seem quite strange that the Congressional Black Caucus was able to keep this meeting a secret.
Britain, says in part:
I’m sorry to say that I think that that is very largely true. It was a chance to jump on the band wagon and trumpet one’s bona fides as a morally superior person. I really was unable to get anyone to tell me exactly why they had voted for him. It was a lot of “Well, I just felt …” type crap. There was no real excuse.
Even my elderly mother, almost eighty at the time, and a Democrat for half of her life, had the presence of mind to ask, what he had ever done to qualify for president other than be a senator for a short while. I guess she got it out of her system with Kennedy.
However we mustn’t take it too far. If you are a black Catholic conservative, be it politician/intellectual [Alan Keyes] , jurist [Thomas] or lawman [Bill Lucas]…. fuggedaboudit. The white Dems ain’t biting anyway.
I’m also convinced there was something akin to that signaling impulse with those conservatives who were swooning over Colin Powell years ago … without apparently ever having done more than glance at the headings on his resume. He was a cypher.
Well, there are lots of people running around this world looking for absolution through politics, for the petty moral crimes and personal failings of which they are, and know themselves to be, guilty.
“Yet, somehow, Trump being within 50 miles of David Duke was enough to forever tar him as a white supremacist.”
Hell, they tarred John McCain as a neo-Nazi because of David Duke. Of course, the October 5, 2008 episode of “Meet the Press” where Tom Brokaw actually did this has disappeared down the memory hole now that McCain is a NeverTrumper. We were never at war with John McCain, we were always at war with Oceania.
They tarred Cruz as a puppet of Goldmansachs because his wife once worked for them.
Meanwhile, Trum has a slew of Goldman sachs boys on his admin payroll.