Every few days we are seeing some accusation made by Harry Reid’s campaign operatives which makes its way into the blogosphere and mainstream media. Today the meme is that Sharron Angle is refusing to state her position on Obama’s citizenship.
Once again, the lead is being taken by Greg Sargent, who blogs at The Washington Post, who also has been leading the charge to paint Sharron Angle as extremist and potentially violent.
Now Sargent levels the Birther charge in a backhanded manner. Sargent doesn’t actually claim that Angle believes Obama was not born in Hawaii, yet the title of his post is Report: Sharron Angle won’t say whether she’s ‘birther‘.
Notice the word “report” in the post title, along with “won’t say.” That is the key. Sargent is highlighting a report elsewhere which amounts to nothing more more than a failure of the Angle campaign to return a call from a reporter in Nevada on the subject.
And what was the source used by the reporter? None other than a “progressive” blogger, who along with Harry Reid’s campaign and the Nevada Democratic Party, is pushing the meme that because Angle was endorsed by a group which questions Obama’s citizenship, Angle must be a “Birther.”
Here is the video clip of the “report” on which Sargent bases his post:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdWejwQheZ8]
Since when is a campaign’s failure to return a phone call sufficient to create a story that a candidate “won’t say” something?
It is even more irresponsible because Angle already has agreed to a face-to-face interview next week with the reporter in question, at which point the reporter can question Angle about her views on the subject.
Also, an endorsement does not mean that Angle subscribes to everything an endorser does or says. Here is the actual language from Angle’s campaign website about the group, the Declaration Alliance PAC:
Sharron Angle went to court five times to defense of the Nevada Constitution. No other candidate in this senatorial race, including Harry Reid, has that record. As a result of Sharron Angle’s dedication to constitutional law, she has been endorsed by Declaration Alliance PAC.
Angle’s campaign has denied sharing the group’s views on Obama’s citizenship, as the Nevada reporter has noted (Sargent’s post is the link in the tweet below):
This is exactly the tactic used against Scott Brown by the left-wing blogosphere, as I documented in my post Coakley Supporters Fabricate Birther Accusation Against Brown.
Sargent isn’t alone in using this tactic against Angle, as HuffPo is running a similar post, and now the meme is spreading in the left-wing blogosphere.
Angle’s campaign is not yet equipped to respond promptly to Reid’s campaign tactics, because she had almost no campaign infrastructure as of primary day.
Angle needs to build that infrastructure quickly, because Harry Reid doesn’t have a record on which he can run, but he does have the mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere doing his bidding.
Update 7-2-2010: So will Sargent now rescind his insinuation?
I asked her “flat out” whether she believed Barack Obama was born somewhere other than Hawaii, and she replied, “No. Is that flat-out enough for you?”
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Related Posts:
The War Against Sharron Angle Comes To WaPo
Greg Sargent Targets Sharron Angle, Hits WaPo
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Comments
"Angle needs to build that infrastructure quickly, because Harry Reid doesn't have a record on which he can run, but he does have the mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere doing his bidding."
He also has the money, with seemingly bottomless re-supply by the DNC/ACORN machine.
Harry Reid is vastly unpopular in Nevada. Northern Nevada will vote against him no matter the opposition candidate. Southern Nevada is not a Republican bastion, but again, I don't think he can carry the vote. His goal is not to win – he'd take a win, but I don't think he believes he can win. Harry's goal is simply to trash his opponent in every way possible on a national basis and ruin her reputation. He's a "bitch" in every sense of the word.
Say what you will but Reid COULD succeed in "defining" Angle negatively in the early weeks of the campaign unless she manages to switch the spotlight onto him. There is precious little that any candidate can do about attacks in the left blogosphere any more than influencing the content of Reid's TV spots. What Angle CAN do is to attack Reid — every day with one or another issue that forces Reid to respond.
Money is not the determining factor in doijg so since candidates can launch attacks with internet ads, press releases and comments to reporters. She'd better get busy doijg this or she will be playing defense in a month or two at which point it will be too late to chnage the momentum. Best thing you can to to help is to attack Reid too.
Sounds like the reporters mentioned are just doing what Fox news has always done. Fact via innuendo and "reports."
The wicked thing about this whole paint all the Republicans as birthers slander is that Hillary Clinton's campaign people who were the original birthers. They tried to get the media interested in the story of where Obama was born.
The question of Obama's eligibilty is whether he is a Natural Born Citizen, not whether he was born in Hi. Natural Born Citizens, as defined in dicta of a number of SCOTUS cases, are those born in the US of US Citizen parents. SCOTUS has NEVER defined it as anything less. Obama has already admitted the fact that makes him ineligible, his father was Kenyan, and imparted British Citizenship upon him through the Bitish Nationality Act of 1948.