Back on December 26, we noted that the attacks on Obama had begun: the weak Tony Rezko real-estate story had been pushed into the mainstream media, as had a completely empty narrative involving an intern hired briefly on the recommendation of a major Obama donor.

We did our best to point out that, in addition to muddying the immaculate suit of the junior Senator from Illinois, the point seemed to be to attach the terms “real-estate scandal” and “intern scandal” to the surname “Obama.”

Why, you ask?

Well, here’s the way we put it back on Boxing Day:

“This story — like the first Rezko teaser — has media legs for one very obvious reason: Adding “real estate scandal” to “intern scandal” equals “Bill Clinton” in the minds of reporters, pundits and voters.

“In other words, if every story between now and Primary Day includes those two phrases, Obama’s charismatic touch with crowds will be re-framed as grade-A Clintonian bamboozlement, as self-serving, narcissistic seduction.”

And we went on to make a prediction about the direction of mainstream Obama coverage. Not a prediction that took a whole lot of soothsaying ability, but still a prediction.

“Just wait. Within a few weeks we should get the first round of Time and Newsweek stories, hinting that Hillary has her work cut out for her because — that’s right — she’s essentially running against a younger, better-looking incarnation of her own husband.”

Which brings us to Ruth Marcus’s column today in the Washington Post: “The Clintonian Candidate.” The piece begins just as you might expect:

“There’s a Clinton in the presidential race. The surprise: It may not be Hillary.

“The truly Clintonian figure running for the Democratic nomination is Barack Obama. The senator from Illinois, it’s struck me lately, seems in many ways more like Bill Clinton than does the senator from New York.”

Marcus doesn’t do much other than a quick side-by-side comparison of Bill and Barack, and to her credit she doesn’t wade around too much in the various implied negatives. Still, she’s stood up the template, and given the rapid pace of this cycle we can only expect that Fox News and Anne Coulter will now set about fleshing out the rest of our prediction, so to speak.

The rest of the prediction runs as follows:

“And if you follow [the Obama/Clinton comparison] line out, it doesn’t take you long to see that Obama will eventually have to face the unapologetically racist meme that took down Harold Ford: Obama is charismatic, therefore sexy, therefore sexually predatory, therefore a threat to what are usually referred to as ‘traditional values.’”

All of which means that, according to this accelerated framework, the first Obama “sex scandal” story should impact the mainstream media in . . . T minus four weeks, give or take a day.

And the truly scary part? It’s hard to imagine that it won’t involve a woman with big hair, when it happens.

And that we won’t all know every single solitary pathetic fact about her come the end of May.

Media Matters provides the comprehensive timeline for the Obama madrassa hoax. Really, really well done.

And they also point us to a welcome clarification — likely prompted by numerous folks who helped get the omission some attention — from the New York Times (see the bottom of the page)…

Editors’ Note: January 30, 2007

A front-page article on Sunday reported on Barack Obama’s years at Harvard Law School. It included a quotation from Ron Klain, former chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, who said that Mr. Obama’s inclusive leadership style as president of the Harvard Law Review would not be as effective in running a country.

The Times later learned that Mr. Klain is an informal adviser to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who is expected to announce on Wednesday that he is running for president. Mr. Klain’s affiliation with the Biden campaign should have been disclosed in the article.

And thanks to Kos for showing us this very amusing Obama spoof…

And here are some additional links of interest…

Obama Pushes Deadline for Iraq Pullout
Washington Post - Washington,DC,USA
Barack Obama said Tuesday US combat forces should be out of Iraq by spring 2008 to end "a foreign policy disaster" but he stopped short of endorsing a …

Morris still pushing allegation that Clinton camp planted Obama …
Media Matters for America - Washington,DC,USA
Barack Obama (D-IL) attended a madrassa in his youth. Morris, who himself called the InsightMag.com accusation against Obama "inaccurate," provided no …

Obama vs Hillary for America
The Sun - London,UK
Senator Barack Obama is up against Hillary Clinton, who would be America’s first WOMAN President if she won next year’s race for the White House. …

From the official email list…

Dear Friend,

Today, we sadly find ourselves at the very point in Iraq I feared most when I opposed giving the President the open-ended authority to wage this war in 2002 – an occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences in the midst of a country torn by civil war.

We have waited and we have been patient. We have given chance after chance for a resolution that has not come, and, more importantly, watched with horror and grief the tragic loss of thousands of brave young Americans.

The time for waiting in Iraq is over. The days of our open-ended commitment must come to a close. And the need to bring this war to an end is here.

That is why today, I’m introducing the Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007. This plan would not only place a cap on the number of troops in Iraq and stop the escalation, it would begin a phased redeployment of U.S. forces with the goal of removing of all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by March 31st, 2008 – consistent with the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that the President ignored.

The redeployment of troops to the United States , Afghanistan , and elsewhere in the region would begin no later than May 1st of this year, toward the end of the timeframe I first proposed in a speech more than two months ago. In a civil war where no military solution exists, this redeployment remains our best leverage to pressure the Iraqi government to achieve the political settlement between its warring factions that can slow the bloodshed and promote stability.

The U.S. military has performed valiantly and brilliantly in Iraq . Our troops have done all we have asked them to do and more. But no amount of American soldiers can solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else’s civil war, nor settle the grievances in the hearts of the combatants.

When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience, is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried and failed policy opposed by generals and experts, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and even the Iraqis themselves.

It is time to change our policy.

It is time to give Iraqis their country back.

And it is time to refocus America ’s efforts on the challenges we face at home and the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Barack Obama

And, thanks to Obamarama for pointing us to the video…

While doing some surfing, I thought I’d unearthed a great find, only to realize that it was referenced in what appears to be the inaugural post at runbobama.org.

Well, anyway, there’s a long, interesting article written by Garret Graff (former Dean staffer and son of former AP Vermont Bureau Chief, Chris Graff) from November 1st, 2006 that deserves some further attention.

Graff writes…

As hard as Obama has worked in his career, luck has played a big role in his rise. The frontrunner in his 2004 Senate primary, Blair Hull, and his Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, both were tripped up by troubles with their ex-wives. Had it not been for a restraining order against Hull and allegations of Ryan’s trips to sex clubs, Obama might never have stood before the Democrats in Boston that July. “He knows that he may be the best politician in America, but he also knows that in 2004 he was one of the luckiest,” says David Axelrod, his top political adviser.

A combination of skill and luck put Obama where he is today: poised to be the first black US president—if he wants to be. There are hurdles he has to clear. He has no administrative or executive experience. And although he has dedicated himself to foreign policy, he has no national-security background.

Then there’s his family: His wife, Michelle, has opposed his forays into electoral politics because of the strain it puts on the family and the long absences it requires from their daughters, Sasha, five, and Malia, eight. According to sources close to the family, she has expressed concerns about his security should he seek the presidency. “It’s a good time for his politics, but it’s not a good time for him personally, with his young family,” says adviser and law-school classmate Cassandra Butts.

At least half a dozen African-Americans have preceded Obama as candidates to be America’s first black president, from Jesse Jackson to Virginia’s Douglas Wilder. Colin Powell’s 1995 flirtation with the race traced much the same arc Obama’s has—the “Draft Powell” movement coincided with the publication of his memoir. But none has arrived at what seems to be such an opportune time with such broad appeal. Poised for a multicity book tour and an appearance on Oprah, Obama is into a fall full of speculation.

Obama is cutting a new path in modern politics—one in which he is his own trailblazer. His campaigns for state senator and the US Senate were successful without early support from the Democratic Party. By the time the Democrats threw their arms around him in 2004, Obama was well on his way. “If you think about his trajectory, it was pretty much just Barack on his own. He’s been his own best political adviser for quite some time,” says Butts.

Intensely competitive, Obama typically saves his fiercest battles for the Scrabble board, the basketball court, or the golf course. He has navigated his political career in a way that has created few real enemies. “If Barack has any enemies out there, they come from just sheer jealously,” says Illinois state senator Kirk Dillard, a Republican. “I don’t believe he has any enemies who have a good reason.”

In Washington, Obama has become a policy wonk. “He’s an amazing person in his capacity to understand the issues,” says Chris Lu. Obama also has worked to develop the framework for his worldview and approach to governing. “Early on he wanted to come up with an overarching narrative,” says Samantha Power, who worked with him on foreign policy. “I was really struck by that desire to front-load the big thinking, the toughness of cracking this nut, articulating this balance between freedom and security.”

Lots more there, so read the whole thing if you get a chance.

And now, the rest of today’s featured links…

Obama: I don’t see any urgency
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
NEW ORLEANS — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama toured hurricane-scarred New Orleans on Monday after criticizing the White House for the slow …

Barack Obama and the Great Divide
Washington Post - Washington,DC,USA
Barack Obama (D-Ill.) can win black votes ("is black enough") hinges entirely on his association with white people. In other words, the premise of those …

John Young: Obama and info assassination
Waco Tribune Herald - Waco,TX,USA
Why can’t you hunt antelope online when Internet hunters are stalking Barack Obama? Point, click, fire away. And make sure Fox News gets your e-mail. …

The Audacity of Hope, By Barack Obama
Christian Science Monitor - Boston,MA,USA
In a refreshing voice, presidential hopeful Barack Obama gives readers a blueprint of his view that America requires "a different kind of politics." …

LA College Claims Barack Obama As Alumnus
CBS 2 - Los Angeles,CA,USA
(AP) LOS ANGELES Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama may have degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law School, but a small liberal arts college in a …

Fox defense of Gibson’s report on Obama smear missed mark
Media Matters for America - Washington,DC,USA
Barack Obama attended a madrassa in his youth. But a statement from Shine, as quoted by the ABCNews.com report, never addressed Gibson’s charges that Sen. …

Most of the focus recently has been on the way Fox News pushed the madrassa hoax, but during that January 19th segment of Fox & Friends, one of the hosts, Brian Kilmeade, pushed the idea that Obama had lied about the characters in his memoir, Dreams from My Father.

I remember reading in the introduction that Obama states quite clearly that some of the characters were composites. So, Fox was at it again. But, where did this new attempt to call Obama’s integrity into question come from?

I ended up finding a reference to an article by Lynn Sweet from 2004 in which she seemed rather outraged that Obama had done this. Again, despite the fact that Obama is hiding nothing. Regardless, I knew this would not be the last of this.

Today, I came across an ABC report from January 16th (before the madrassa hoax push on Fox), that discusses the Sweet article.

From Brian Ross’ "The Blotter"…

Lynn Sweet, the savvy Chicago political columnist who’s been tracking Obama’s rise, called into question Obama’s use of composite characters and made-up names in his highly praised autobiography.

Her 2004 column on the subject was headlined "Obama’s Book: What’s Real, What’s Not."

"I was dismayed," wrote Sweet, "at what I found when I read Dreams from My Father. Composite characters. Changed names…Except for public figures and his family, it is impossible to know who is real and who is not."

Wow, that sounds ominous. Except that…

As Sweet noted in her article, in the introduction of the book, Obama does disclose to his readers the use of composite characters "for the sake of compression" and also says that other than his family and public figures, other characters’ "names have been changed to protect their privacy."

In one example, Obama writes at length about his first boss "Marty Kaufman," recalling dozens of detailed conversations in direct quotes and mentioning his name more than 40 times.

Sweet questioned Obama about Kaufman’s true identity and the other composites in the book in an interview just prior to the 2004 Chicago Democratic Convention. Obama said that while he couldn’t remember all the real names, he said "Marty Kaufman" was really "Gerald Kellman," his first boss at the Calumet Community Religious Conference in Chicago.

Sweet tracked down Kellman who had no complaints about his portrayal in the book. "I think Barack was very accurate not only about myself but other people that I knew," Kellman told the reporter.

Huh, what a surprise, there’s really no story there.

Most of the commenters on the Ross piece get the absurdity of this…

If this is a non-news story, as it appears to be, why do you feel compelled to try to make it a story? In such circumstances, it is irresponsible to cast aspersions as you have done, without any clear purpose for having done so.

Posted by: Ken Schory | Jan 16, 2007 3:42:51 PM

…

I have no idea whether I’ll support Obama or not but this type of "reporting" is why I get turned off from politics. Obama discloses the composites and name change; the reporter proved it out in one case. Move on. I believe these type of stories are planted - over and over and over again - to create doubt even when the facts don’t warrant it. Whoever believes that our media is unbiased is living in denial.

Posted by: Lynne | Jan 16, 2007 4:03:06 PM

But, that doesn’t stop others from internalizing the insinuation and saying things like this…

Sounds like James Frey, who was run out of town by literary critics and Oprah as I recall. I was one of the few who thought that whole thing was stupid, consdering, not only was Frey’s book wonderful, it got people to read a book. Maybe that is Obama’s thought too at least they are reading something

Posted by: patrice | Jan 16, 2007 4:12:46 PM

Ross closes the article with this graf featuring a blind quote from the Obama camp…

When reached by ABC News today, a spokesman for Sen. Obama first tried to find out if the Chicago Sun-Times story was being "pitched" to ABC by a rival campaign, and after being told that was not the case, the spokesman declined to comment for the record. "It was a non-story then, and it’s a non-story now. Let the book speak for itself,"  he said.

Again, this article appeared before the madrassa hoax took off, but I hope the Obama campaign has learned the correct lessons from that episode. That silence, as a response to erroneous stories, can be seen as an indication that there might be something to hide.

UPDATE: And to prove my point above, here’s Andrew “Cooties” Sullivan’s response, from January 18th, to the Blotter article…

Does he have a James Frey problem? I like Obama, but you’ve got to worry when a campaign dismisses something as a “non-story.” That almost always means it’s a real one.

Of course, if you read the Brian Ross piece, you would know there isn’t a story. But, that doesn’t stop Sullivan from questioning the response from Obama’s camp, regardless.

Africa: Obama…is White House Beckoning On Africa?
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
Senator Hussein Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on the 4th August, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Snr was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, …

Obama’s competitors have strong ties to black voters
USA Today - USA
NEW YORK (AP) — Being black does not necessarily mean White House hopeful Senator Barack Obama has a lock on black voters in the 2008 elections. …

A Brutal Reality: How Tony Dungy, Lovie Smith, and Barack Obama …
PopPolitics - USA
The three black men grabbing all the headlines the past few weeks are Barack Obama, the Illinois senator/presidential candidate, and Tony Dungy and Lovie …

Obama Comes Home For Church
CBS2 Chicago - Chicago,IL,USA
(CBS) CHICAGO With the launch of his presidential campaign less than two weeks away — every part of Senator Barack Obama’s life is being examined by …

Obama lends star power to congressional hearing on Katrina
KATC - Lafayette,LA,USA
Barack Obama will tour this storm-battered city on Monday to highlight the slow pace of the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina, a visit that comes about …

Doubt biggest hurdle for ‘08 diversity trifecta
Chicago Tribune - Chicago,IL,USA
A conservative Midwestern talk-radio host recently asked me a question that I am certain haunts many minds these days: "If Barack Obama doesn’t get elected, …

Secrets of Obama family unlocked
The Sunday Times - UK
WHEN Barack Obama, America’s newest presidential hopeful, was hit by allegations that he had attended a radical Islamic madrasah school as a boy in …

As is always the case, Jamison Foser does an absolutely fanstastic job of documenting the Freak Show week that was. His latest Media Matters column touches on the important high- and low-lights — from Bob Somerby’s scary epiphany that news coverage in the campaign of 2008 might be just as bad as 2000, to Atrios’ discussion of the origins of the Freak Show; from the lessons of the whole sordid Obama madrassa hoax to the latest inane comments from Chris Matthews.

And yes, as always, the post I wish I’d written (I swear that guy must be paid to do this) …

Somerby’s post caused us to think about how the media’s coverage during the 2000 presidential campaign of then-Vice President Al Gore’s childhood differs from the past week’s coverage of Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood education.

Throughout the 2000 presidential campaign, news reports portrayed Al Gore as having grown up in a "vast" "penthouse suite" in the "elegant" and "swank" Fairfax Hotel, a "luxury Washington hotel." It wasn’t true, as we’ll see, but that didn’t get in the way of its ubiquity.

…

InsightMag.com’s Obama story was false, of course — but false stories there, under its previous incarnation as a print magazine called Insight on the News, have been credulously repeated by (theoretically) more responsible news organizations in the past. Among the various smears perpetuated against the Clintons in the 1990s by the media and their political opponents, it’s virtually impossible to identify one that was the most vicious and irresponsible. But Insight’s bogus (and quickly debunked) 1997 claim that Clinton auctioned off Arlington National Cemetery burial plots the highest bidder would have to make anyone’s short list.

Neither the sleaziness of Insight’s Arlington Cemetery report nor the report’s lack of named sources stopped other news organizations from running with it…

…

The media are still flooded with conservative misinformation every day. Indeed, while several news organizations have debunked the Obama-madrassa smear, few have debunked the Clinton-madrassa smear: the claim that Clinton’s campaign was behind the nonstory.

But recognition of the problem is growing — as is the ability of those who care to fight back.

And speaking of the Obama madrassa hoax story, Jonathan Alter offers a summary in "Behind the ‘Madrassa Hoax.’" Before I say anymore, though, I want to thank Alter for using the appropriate word "hoax" here. Most, including me, have been using "smear," but that’s not really accurate.

Alter joins Norm Ornstein and others in echoing Halperin and Harris’ "Freak Show" in describing the ways of new media information flow. How some fringe site starts a story, talk radio picks it up, then Fox News and then the rest of the media feels compelled to cover it. In some ways, despite the soft-focus on the fact that this is almost entirely a right-wing phenomena, it is somewhat remarkable to see these issues beginning to be discussed openly.

Within Alter’s piece, though, there’s one interesting quote from Clinton advisor Harold Ickes regarding the danger of the fast flow of information to a campaign’s oppostion research efforts. He says…

“If they [bloggers] can finger you trying to drop poison into the well, you’ll be hurt by it,” Ickes adds. “Stuff moves out so quickly that campaigns have to exercise much more control over their negative information apparatus.”

It’s certainly not an admission that Hillary Clinton’s "negative information appartus" was behind the madrassa hoax. But, it’s hard not to read that as an affirmation that "well, you know, maybe we throw around a lot of nasty ideas and if people got wind of some of them, it wouldn’t look so good for us."

Just saying. And as Alter says, "This could be good. When ‘oppo’ goes transparent, it might shrivel."

He’s also the first mainstream writer from what I can tell who’s mentioned ObamaTruth.org, the Michelle Obama smear site run by Joe Novak. Alter adds a bit more to this story by describing Novak as "a Chicago media consultant with a longtime rivalry with David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign chief."

Hmm…

One amusing note about this article that discusses the flow of misinformation about Obama’s childhood: Alter writes about "his atheist father, a Kenyan academic whom Obama met only once in his life." But, of course, Barack Obama lived with his father until he was two.

Just saying.

Clinton pal Bobby Rush: I’m supporting Obama
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
Bobby Rush said Friday he is backing Barack Obama for president — despite Rush’s long friendship with rival White House hopeful Hillary Clinton and her …

Clinton, Obama Compare and Contrast
E.J. Dionne - Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Three differences and three similarities will define the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. …

Obama’s appeal foreshadowed at Harvard Law
The Courier News - Elgin,IL,USA
Barack Obama, D-Illinois, displayed the traits — and attracted the same kind of following and accolades — that have made him a leading contender for the …

Stanley Crouch: Obama’s a better choice than Clinton
Sacramento Bee - Sacramento,CA,USA
Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, and one question was whether or not Obama would become the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party in 2008. …

ABC News has a pretty good article and video from January 25th which details some of the origins of the fake Insight Magazine madrassa story — and the Obama camp’s response to it.

But, one section made me just a little bit nervous. Even if the tone might be unfairly reinforcing the "Obama is too green" media narrative that has developed…

"About three or four months ago, something started surfing around the Web and it was a pretty scurrilous article suggesting not only that I had gone to a Madrassa, but that my family members were Muslim radicals," Obama said. "And we didn’t make much of it … you can’t control what’s on the Web. What was surprising was that it eventually bubbled up into the mainstream media."

Were Obama, and others in his campaign, really that surprised? I certainly hope not. While some commentators have expressed admiration for the way the Obama team responded to this smear attempt, others have wondered what took them so long…

"The Obama camp didn’t know whether to deny this, thereby making it a legitimate issue for every media organization, or whether to ignore it and hope that false rumor would simply go away," said Larry Sabato, Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. "They actually failed to make a decision promptly, which probably brought them the worst of both worlds."

Unfortunately, what we should all have learned from the numerous, unsubstantiated smears made against the Clintons, Al Gore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and others, is that it doesn’t matter if it’s true.

As the close of ABC’s article suggests…

"Frankly, some of this will stick because no matter how thoroughly you debunk a story, the allegation is out there," Ornstein said.

Mark Twain once said that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. With the presidential campaign season heating up so soon, those lies have already begun their travels.

So far, though, it seems to have been a few members of the netroots (particulary JHC at Obamarama.org) who’ve been handling Obama’s rapid response… um… rapidly.

[While I was writing this, I did a little surfing and realized that the Carpetbagger is discussing the same issue.]

Is there something just a little bit amusing about the Obama “inexperience” concern?

Ellen Goodman thinks so…

Somehow I do not think that Barack Obama gets up in the morning, brushes his teeth, looks in the mirror and says, ‘Wow! A fresh face!’ It doesn’t happen at 45. At 45, you count the crow’s feet and measure the circles under your eyes.

If you are a woman, you start reading the fine print on the Oil of Olay Regenerist label. After, of course, putting on your new reading glasses. If you’re a man, you start swiping eye cream from your wife’s stash.

While you are inspecting your not-so-fresh face, you remember that when Mozart was your age he’d been dead 10 years. Albert Einstein published the big theory of relativity at 36. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at 33. It begins to occur to you that you will never be a prodigy or the youngest anything, not even the youngest president of the United States. Teddy Roosevelt had that sewed up at 42.

…

Most of the green-talk is indeed from boomers, a generation that was just coming of age — teen-age — when Jack Kennedy was killed at 46. Is it possible that the same generation that famously didn’t trust anybody over 30 when they were 20 doesn’t trust anybody under 50 now that they are turning 60?

One of the charms of the boomers, the watermelon in the demographic python, is how they are managing to age without getting old. My favorite factoid comes from a Yankelovich study showing that boomers define “old age” as starting three years after the average American is dead. It’s a new wrinkle on the 1965 song by “The Who”: “I hope I die before I get old.”

…

Obama was technically born at the tail end of the boom, but places himself politically outside the “psychodrama of the baby-boom generation,” which he describes in his book “The Audacity of Hope” as “a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago.”

The “new generation” of network anchors leading the green-talk — Brian, 47; Katie, 50; and Charles, 63 — are all older.

Well, it’s a shock when the people you went to high school with start ruling the world. It’s another rite of passage to acknowledge juniors as your superiors. But boomers are now turning 60 with a life expectancy of 82. It’s an early sign of memory loss to forget that at 45 you were wise or foolish, or both — but you weren’t young.

That master of the last word, Oscar Wilde, said, “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” He figured that out at 39.