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Obama & “Ax” Lie Today to Voters [Updated x2]

By SusanUnPC on March 2, 2008 at 9:56 PM in Barack Obama, David Axelrod, Hillary Clinton, Iraq

UPDATE x2 (Monday, 8:51AM PT): Would someone please tell Heidi Collins et al. at CNN about this story below? They are running the video of Obama’s speech yesterday on Rockefeller without pointing out his erroneous, misleading misstatements. ABC News and many others have explained Obama’s and Axelrod’s misleading statements. Doesn’t CNN ever vet the content of the video they run? (Just have to ask, even if it’s obvious what the answer is.)

“Earlier today, Sen. Obama attacked Hillary on Iraq by invoking Sen. Rockefeller and incorrectly saying that the WVA Senator opposed the 2002 Iraq vote. The truth is that Sen. Rockefeller voted for the war resolution – not against it as Sen. Obama suggested to the people of Ohio. This seems to be an Obama campaign talking point since its top strategist also claimed that Sen. Rockefeller voted against the war resolution when he was on national television this morning.

“’Sen. Obama is so desperate to divert attention from his limited national security experience that he’s not just misleading voters about Sen. Clinton, he’s also misleading voters about his own supporters. That is not change you can believe in.’ — Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer” (Facthub)

(SusanUnPC’s note: I heard Obama campaign manager David Axelrod repeat the same lie about Sen. Rockefeller today on ABC’s This Week. I have relistened to the segment, which is still on my DVR. So it’s a widespread Obama campaign meme for today — to spread this outright lie. It is near the top of the show, at the 55:45 mark [i.e., 55:45 minutes left in the show].) UPDATE: ABC News’s blog, Political Radar, caught both Obama’s and Axelrod’s misstatements today. The quote is below.

QUOTES from ABC News’s blog, Political Radar:

[Obama today at a rally in Westerville, Ohio] then summoned up his newest surrogate, Rockefeller, as an example.

"Jay Rockefeller read it, but she didn’t read it. I don’t know where all that experience got her because I have enough experience to know that if you have a national intelligence estimate and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says, ‘you should read this, that’s why I voted against the war,’ then you should probably read it."

The problem? Rockefeller voted for war.

Obama’s statement left the impression that Rockefeller was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, read the NIE report and then voted against the war. Rockefeller, who is currently the chair, was not chair at the time and cast his vote for war, not against it.

The Obama campaign says that Obama was referencing former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., then Intelligence Committee chair, who read the NIE report, and voted against the war. They said that Obama knows Rockefeller and Graham’s record on the war vote, but was simply not clear who he was referencing.

Alrighty then. It’s easy to mix up Bob Graham with Jay Rockefeller. It’s easy to forget that Rockefeller cast his vote for the AUMF. It’s easy to recall that Rockefeller wasn’t chair of the Senate intelligence committee at the time. Hey. No big deal, right?

Well, then there’s your “Ax” out there using the same lie. Which means that it was one of today’s big talking points. Which means that you ALL shared the same memo this morning, and consciously spread this lie. And that your people didn’t fact-check any of it. Any of it. Again, from ABC News:

[...]

Slice Obama’s comment with that of the Obama campaign’s chief strategist, David Axelrod’s comments on ABC’s "This Week," when he told George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, "Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who opposed the war in Iraq, who read the intelligence before the war, which Sen. Clinton concedes she did not, and who said that Barack Obama has the judgment and the maturity and the vision to lead."

The Obama campaign says that Axelrod just misspoke when he said Rockefeller opposed the war.

Andy

Great you put this up! I have just posted the same lies from Obama today in Ohio in the previous thread.
Thanks.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

Great. Please post your previous comment here too.

It was a deliberately spread lie today.
anon

Ahem…doesn’t this show “bad judgment” on Obama’s part?

I thought Obama was the one with superior judgment?
jen

I wrote to Tom Raum, the AP political correspondent who wrote THIS article, with the lie transcribed as told.

At Congress.org Media Guide, put in his last name in “Individual Search.” At results page, click his name, and then click “Send Message.”

He could easily have checked the U.S. Senate website to get verification. I asked him to please correct the “misinformation.” We all should.
________
Hmmm. In the preview the first paragraph of my post is cut off. In case it doesn’t show up when I post, the AP Article by Tom Raum is here.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

Good for you, Jen. I’ll write him, and hope others here do too.
apsihapa

It occurs to me that I see a lot of pissing and moaning on DailyObama and Obamington Post about how Lieberman has been such a horrible failure as the Homeland Security Committee Chair because he does not hold oversight hearings or really act on anything.

They are right he is a miserable excuse for a Committee Chairman. He doesn’t do shit. But Obama is just as useless as a Senator as Lieberman and a complete filure as a chairman of the Subcommittee on Nato. He has shown a complete lack of leadership on NATO. A very important position for which I’m certain there were more qualified Senators available and willing to do some real work. The subcommittee because it has no leader.

Yet, never do you hear complaints about how worthless Obama is at those sites. You hear, he is too busy to be a senator. He will work when he is elected. Running for President is his job right now. Excuses, excuses.

Yet, Hillary Clinton has found time to do some work. She has never slacked off. She works twice as hard. She doesn’t need excuses. She introduced new legislation this week for a ban on mercenaries.

Obama is lazy and uncommitted to his job. He will be the same kind of president as he is as a Senator.
OxyCon

It is extremely poor judgment to tell these kinds of blatant lies, and think you will get away with them.

Like bringing up NAFTA solely because you think it would make a great attack against Hillary Clinton in Ohio, then telling the Canadian government not to believe a word you are saying.

Over and over, if you look at what is coming out of Obama’s mouth and compare that with the truth, there is a recurring theme, “lies and poor judgment”, and that means “no change at all from the disastrous Bush administration”.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

Nice tie-in to the B.S. about NAFTA and the “wink wink” to the Canadians.
TeakWoodKite

I saw your post Andy, Thanks. Axelrod, this morning was on defense when pressed about Obama’s association with Rezko…he lawyered up in his rhetoric and I was focusing on his demeanor at that moment.
Salo

this connects to a memory hole i noticed

Clinton’s red phone moment was 9/11. she was the Senator from NY at the time. She toured the destruction. consoled the surivors and did follow up for the injured. She kept her calm and outclassed most Democrats.

And the NIE is a bullshit issue. Half the people who read it voted for the IWR.

Those predisposed to oust Saddam Hussein voted to oust him, those inclined to leave him alone voted nay. A case study won’t change those instinctive predispostions.
Salo

Obama on Rockefeller’s IWR vote. He’s testing just how much he can distort the record and revise history. He’s getting away with it all.

He has to have known who the six senators are who read the NIE and how they did vote.

50/50 split even after they read the document in question.
jwrjr

It seems to me that the last Democratic president who told an untruth got massacred by the republicans. The fact that they are not doing it to Obama tells you something about Obama and the republicans. Either they want him nominated so that they can swiftboat him in the gen. election, or Obama is a republican. Neither is much of a recommendation.
jen

apsihapa, you are so correct, that Hillary has found time to do some work.

My bud over at CCN (Clark Community Network) blogged about some of the bills Hillary has sponsored in the 110th Congress. There were over 150 of them, not including bills she had co-sponsored, and she went through them and picked out those she considered most interesting.

Check it out:

Hillary – the 110th Congress- the Beef

I actually think it’s very important to have a president who can multi-task!
jen

Exactly, Salo!

But — If O wins the nomination, they are going to learn real quick this won’t work when he’s up against the Repubs.
Andy

Thank you Jen. Just sent an email to Raum. Hope everyone does. I questioned there as well why noone has reported on the extraordinary support by the flag officers of Sen. Clinton to be the next Commander in Chief.
Mel

Whats a few lies on the way to the Whitehouse?

From memos on how to max out the race card to calling a foreign governement then denying it to lying about everyones records including his own, but her he is applying for the highest position in the land isn’t he!

Doesn’t this totally smell of Karl Rove?
TeakWoodKite

Thanks Jen. Done
vee

This lie is the typical hit and run method of the Obama campaign. They like to get the lie out in the public and let it do its work. They don’t worry about the lying because the press isn’t interested in causing them any bad publicity.
yellow dog dem

Barack and Hillary are tied in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. His momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing, and I doubt that this or Rezko will stop it anytime soon. My worry is that he seems to be riding a wave of emotion that will crash after he is the nominee (I assume he probably will be). A reporter on Real Time with Bill Maher interviewed a young Obama supporter who said in effect that Obama is infallible, he’s never wrong! I’m thinking that is more or less the opinion of a lot of his followers, particularly the young college crowd, and I feel that this idealistic view and enthusiasm can’t last for another nine months, especially if scrutiny increases! If he wins, I’ll be biting my nails until November.
CognitiveDissonance

Isn’t it amazing how many of Obama’s high profile supporters actually voted for the war resolution? Kerrey, of course, is a big one. I guess they are showing their bad judgment yet again by supporting this liar.
Andy

That’s interesting, since Obama chose Sen. Lieberman as his mentor when he first arrived in the US Senate.
Maybe you can clarify this to the Obamanoids in those sites? So much for an anti-war stance….
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

SEE my update at the top of the story. Please call CNN and tell them to have Heidi Collins and her producers do their job!
Andy

Even worse, this morning I am not sure who is the anchor woman was interviewing someone (a woman from
Clinton’s camp) and the anchor kept refering over and over (despite corrections by the interviewee)

“Obama’s vote in 2002 against the war resolution”

This is open war from CNN….
Andy

Where do we call CNN?

I think they know full well what they are doing. They haven’t let any of my posts/comments questioning their pieces on Obama through: full censure.