CNN STILL Pushing Lie of Rev. Wright/Rev Hagee Comparison

January 28, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Liberals, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Republicans, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

ALSO, America apparently the land of permanent racism

I am wondering if CNN was out of the country last November 4? Maybe it missed that McCain lost the election because, once again, CNN trotted out an Old Media campaign lie aimed at making John McCain “as bad as” the Reverend Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright by using the talking point that in Reverend John Hagee McCain had a “controversial” pastor, too? Not only did CNN fall back on the lie that Hagee is somehow just as bad as Wright — and thereby smearing John McCain with Wright’s racist hatespeak — but CNN got a twofer with this piece by again portraying America as the land of permanent, unrelenting racism by hinting that Obama will never get a chance because he’s black.

News flash to CNN: Barack HAS gotten a chance. He was elected with a comfortable majority of votes.

If anyone wonders what any criticism of Barack Obama will be termed by the Old Media, CNN’s headlined “Will Obama have to be better because he’s black?” seems to answer to that question. You see, Obama won’t be given a chance, CNN tells us, because he’s black. Any failure will be made larger because he’s black. And any criticism of him is just racism forcing Obama to “work harder than whites” at his job.

Amazingly, sort of like the fable of the boy that cried wolf, as CNN puts out this doggerel there doesn’t seem to be a single article from either side of the aisle raising this point except CNN. No one is even remotely using this concept as a bludgeon with which to beat the new president. No credible person is warning that he isn’t smart enough or isn’t up to the job because he’s black.

But, at least this concept which is left over trope from past experience is one that might be legitimately thought not fully dispelled. On some level, we can at least understand the elder black man featured in the piece, a Tuskegee Airman named Alexander Jefferson, wondering if Barack will be subject to similar pressure that he experienced in WWII. Jefferson felt he had to be twice as good as a white pilot to be accepted for his skills in the cockpit and assumes that Obama will be held to a similar over-expectation. Since Barack is the first black president, this fellow’s worries are understandable at some level… even though contemporary evidence seems to suggest that such outmoded thinking has long been defeated.

Instead of sticking with the curiosity of Mr. Jefferson, though, CNN had to stray back to a campaign lie that the Old Media used to quash outrage over Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s quite current racist hate in order to assist Barack Obama to distance himself from his racist “spiritual mentor” in an all out media effort to get him elected — a goal the Old Media achieved.

CNN revisited the lie that John McCain’s sparse connection with Reverend John Hagee was “just as bad” as Obama’s connection to the racist, anti-American ranting of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Rojecki says people who say Obama isn’t going to be held to a different standard because of his skin color didn’t pay attention to his campaign.

He says Obama had to deal with challenges that other candidates didn’t have to face. Obama’s run for office was almost ended by his association with his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose incendiary sermons shocked many.

But Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s relationship with the Rev. John Hagee, who was accused of anti-Semitism, never threatened to end his campaign, Rojecki says.

“Obama was held responsible for what his minister said, and McCain was associated with Hagee, but somehow that didn’t stick,” says Rojecki, a communication professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This is a blatant lie promulgated by this Rojecki fellow and CNN. John McCain had never met John Hagee before the campaign and had only visited with him a few times once McCain received Hagee’s endorsement. On the other hand, Barack Obama counted the racist Rev. Wright as a “member of the family,” called him his “spiritual mentor” and sat in his church listening to his racist, anti-American rants, with his children sitting beside him, for twenty years. To say that Obama’s twenty year relationship with the racist Wright is exactly the same as McCain’s twenty minute relationship with Hagee is the worst sort of lie.

But, here is CNN throwing this lie out there to bamboozle the public once again.

CNN leaves us at the end of this article with another Rojecki lie. This time making it seem as if George W. Bush was unqualified and could not have been elected president were he black.

White candidates for office don’t have to have an uninterrupted life of achievement to be considered for the Oval Office, Rojecki says.

“If George W. Bush were black, do you think he would be president?” Rojecki says.

Why wouldn’t we expect Bush to have gotten elected if he were black? After all, Obama got elected and he has very little experience compared to what Bush had in 1999. If we elected Obama, a black man with almost no resume at all, why wouldn’t we have elected a two time Governor of one of the largest states in the union even if he should have been black?

Obama’s election has lowered the bar quite a bit, here. Far from expecting more qualifications for future candidates, his candidacy seems to speak to fewer qualifications being required by voters!

(Photo credit: msnbc.com)

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

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Tags: Publius Forum, Warner Todd Huston, Media Bias, CNN

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