Howard Kurtz - Hillary, Obama and Anonymous Sources - washingtonpost.com
Various outlets in and out of the blogosphere are trumpeting this Kurtz story as incontrovertible repudiation of the unverified charges about Barack Obama’s childhood education. The unimpeachable source? Barack Obama’s campaign spokesman:
“The allegations are completely false,” says Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Well, that should settle the matter, shouldn’t it? Especially since the details of Barack Obama’s education in Indonesia are a matter of public record, right?
Well, not exactly. In fact, getting hard info on Obama’s Indonesian education is surprisingly difficult. Even his own official biographies only make reference to “early education,” and “two years in an Indonesian school that was…primarily Muslim.” But the school has not, to my knowledge, been named. Nor is it clear how old Obama was when he was attending that school.
Most presidential contenders have a reasonably simple backhistory - dates of birth, dates and locations of schooling, military service, etc. I see no reason to give Obama a pass on this sort of basic backgrounding, simply because Howard Kurtz decides that an Obama spokesman (or a Clinton spokesman) is incontrovertibly more believable than an article from an outlet Kurtz’s employers at WaPo have excoriated for years. And, for what it’s worth, in its response to Kurtz, Insight Magazine points out that anonymous sourcing is common practice on many big stories, including stories that WaPo itself has run. (And, I would point out, NYT, Newsweek, CBS, etc…)
Finally, an odd note: The Insight story broke on January 17, 2007, according to their web site. But nine days earlier, on January 8, 2007, Dr. Jack Wheeler, well-known religious conservative commentator and pundit, released essentially the same story here.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
why you want to go live in the gutter, bud? Is this a meaningful way to spend your precious time on earth?
Boy, aaron, long time no see. See if you can’t arrange for that to happen again, okay?
From the AP(they are totally trustworthy)
“The allegations are completely baseless,” said Akmad Solichin, the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1, who added, “Yes, most of our students are Muslim, but there are Christians as well. Everyone’s welcome here … it’s a public school.”
Iis Darmawan, 63, Obama’s kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. “He wrote an essay titled, ‘I Want To Become President,’” the teacher said.
Sri Murtiningsih, who retired from Menteng 1 recently after 39 years of teaching, said she has vivid memories of the left-handed boy who followed a standard curriculum of math, writing, and language, together with twice-weekly religious affairs classes and sports.
Murtiningsih said neighbors ran to her house after seeing a television report about his intention to run for president.
“They were yelling, ‘Your old student is going to take Bush’s job!’” she said. “Tears filled my eyes.”
Do we have another source? Do they really expect us to believe that after over 37 years teachers and their neighbors can remember one student?