AmericasBlood.com » obama

The separation of Stupidity and State

Administrator — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:57:24 +0000

There has somehow come the opinion that letting our children listen to the duly elected President of their country talk to them about the importance of education is a BAD thing. that it is a POLITICAL thing that it is to be discouraged. Exactly on what planet do these people live where our President is somehow not really their President and they have to protect their children from hearing and seeing him? Do they honestly believe that the importance of Education is a political topic? that it’s not what in most countries would be considered common sense? that we do not have a absolute lack of focus amongst our children? Someone needs to tell our children what it is they should be working towards and right now most parents don’t seem to be getting that message through. U.S. eight graders rank 11th worldwide in Science scores and 8th worldwide in math. If that is what these parents are protecting their children from, then they should absolutely have the right to tell their children to go ahead and fail in school, go ahead and look forward to a job in the service sector, go ahead and be less, but for those few parents who DO want their children to succeed, who DO want their children to go to college, what better voice than the President of these united States to talk directly to THEm, not through their parents or through their school administrators, bu to them, and show them the importance of education.

Alaskans Underwhelmed by Palin? (ADN Endorses Obama)

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:47:12 +0000

From Tha Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s largest newspaper:

Alaska enters its 50th-anniversary year in the glow of an improbable and highly memorable event: the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate. For the first time ever, an Alaskan is making a serious bid for national office, and in doing so she brings broad attention and recognition not only to herself, but also to the state she leads.

Alaska’s founders were optimistic people, but even the most farsighted might have been stretched to imagine this scenario. No matter the outcome in November, this election will mark a signal moment in the history of the 49th state. Many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.

Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn’t do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown’s root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.

On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

Sen. McCain describes himself as a maverick, by which he seems to mean that he spent 25 years trying unsuccessfully to persuade his own party to follow his bipartisan, centrist lead. Sadly, maverick John McCain didn’t show up for the campaign. Instead we have candidate McCain, who embraces the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years.

It is Sen. Obama who truly promises fundamental change in Washington. You need look no further than the guilt-by-association lies and sound-bite distortions of the degenerating McCain campaign to see how readily he embraces the divisive, fear-mongering tactics of Karl Rove. And while Sen. McCain points to the fragile success of the troop surge in stabilizing conditions in Iraq, it is also plain that he was fundamentally wrong about the more crucial early decisions. Contrary to his assurances, we were not greeted as liberators; it was not a short, easy war; and Americans — not Iraqi oil — have had to pay for it. It was Sen. Obama who more clearly saw the danger ahead.

The unqualified endorsement of Sen. Obama by a seasoned, respected soldier and diplomat like Gen. Colin Powell, a Republican icon, should reassure all Americans that the Democratic candidate will pass muster as commander in chief.

On a matter of parochial interest, Sen. Obama opposes the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but so does Sen. McCain. We think both are wrong, and hope a President Obama can be convinced to support environmentally responsible development of that resource.

Gov. Palin has shown the country why she has been so successful in her young political career. Passionate, charismatic and indefatigable, she draws huge crowds and sows excitement in her wake. She has made it clear she’s a force to be reckoned with, and you can be sure politicians and political professionals across the country have taken note. Her future, in Alaska and on the national stage, seems certain to be played out in the limelight.

Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

True Colors Shining Through

Administrator — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:33:44 +0000

Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”

by Charley James

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48″ about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch- It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk

It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.

On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.

“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”

“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”

Like most other people interviewed, he didn’t want his name used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it’s the long winter nights where you don’t see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they’re under constant danger from “the authorities. ” As I interviewed residents it began sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that’s happening, say nothing offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how- long.

Alright, that’s an exaggeration brought on by my getting too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But there’s ample evidence of Palin’s vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.

Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall campaign.

“People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day,” states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.

For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from office because, she told a local newspaper, he “intimidated” her.

Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views

Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her campaign.

Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but.

“She’s doesn’t like different opinions and she refuses to compromise,” Kilkenny notes. “When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t hers. Worse, ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.”

Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney’s reincarnate.

Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax policies, and a “refund surpluses but borrow for the future” attitude.

According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian’s with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.

To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city’s infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayer’s money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?

For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over, as a matter of fact.

Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated price of the facility.

She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5 million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing. Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond dealers.

For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.

Sarah Barracuda

En route to the governor’s igloo, Palin managed to land what Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings. She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it turned out, not liking the work.

“She hated the job,” an OGCC staff member who is not authorized to speak with the news media told me. “She hated the hours and she hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn’t figure out a way to get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski” and the state Republican Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn’t get appointed.

But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way. First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position was overpaid and should be abolished – despite the fact that she lobbied Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an undeserved reputation as a “reformer.”

But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.

“She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids,” said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. “I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it’s nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you.”

Not surprising since some of her high school classmates still openly call her “Sarah Barracuda,” Kilkenny insists.

Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a “reformer.”

And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla. No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.

And what has she done since winning the job?

According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than suggesting the state’s multi-multi- million dollar, oil-generated surplus be distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money. Gee, doesn’t that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush’s economic policies left the nation.

It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me, what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain’s running mate, her mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, “What has Sarah done to qualify her to be vice president?” Of course, when the woman – said by many I spoke with to be well-respected in Wasilla – was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.

As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects, calling them pork. “They were restored because of public outcry and legislative action,” the aide said. “She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what they were or why they were important.”

But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as being “anti-pork”.

In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then, Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel politics

I’ll Cut His Nuts Off!

Administrator — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:57:28 +0000

Wow.. Really? From a "Reverend"? Boy. Whooo. Weird. Jesse said that? Jesse Jackson?

Well, as D.L. Hughley put it, Once Obama wins the Presidency, Jesse Jackson will have to go back to selling insurance for a living. He is afraid that his days of living off the specter of disenfranchisement are just about over. Additionally, he’s apparently been drinking the Haterade. Add in the fact he’s still sensitive about Obama’s Father’s Day Speech about Fatherly Responsibilites, when we all know Jesse has a kid "on the side". and the fact that Obama is doing what Jesse apparently couldn’t, and to make it worse, is doing so while appealing to, and striving for the presidency of ALL of America, not just certain parts and tight demographics like Jesse did. All in all, thst will help Barack. Among the Black community, we are well aware that Jesse has pretty much lost his relevancy, and we all know he’s gone a bit soft in the head with age, but among white voters, Jesse saying what he did just goes to show that

1.) Barack isn’t in league to take over America for blacks, and
2.) Barack must not be quite as far left liberal as many thought he was.

Go Jesse. Help Obama.

Update:

In additional comments from that same conversation, first reported by TVNewser, Jackson is reported to have said Obama was "talking down to black people," and referred to blacks with the N-word when he said Obama was telling them "how to behave."

Though a Fox spokesman confirmed to The Associated Press that Jackson used the slur, the network declined to release the full transcript of the July 6 show and did not air the comments.

The only geographic that counts.

Administrator — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:31:17 +0000

Funny that the candidate that initially made the arguement that she was the logical candidate for Blacks and Hispanics to rally behind is NOW saying that their support means nothing. Hillary now makes the arguement that Blacks, Hispanics, Younger and Middle-Aged women, educated men, and every demographic BUT working-class men, just doesn’t count. Seems that since that’s where her support is the strongest, she is making the arguement that this is the only demographic that should be considered come the fall. Seems that Hillary is pretty quick to disenfranchise those who don’t support her. Any vote against Hillary is a vote that means nothing, according to her logic. Is there anyone who still believes that she won’t carry that spiteful, vindictive attitude all the way to the White House? That it will allways be her way or no compromise, irregardless of the popular vote? After all, Hillary knows best.

Hrmmm….

Administrator — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:30:32 +0000

A New York Daily News reporter, Errol Louis, revealed that Rev. Barbara Reynolds, who is also a journalist, is a Clinton supporter who suggested Rev. Wright as a speaker to the National Press Club awhile back and was recently asked to organize his appearance there this week.

Since Louis broke his story, the relevant February entry on Barbara Reynold’s blog has disappeared — just vanished. In addition, neither Rev. Reynolds nor the Clinton campaign, as of the posting of this news alert, have responded to queries about whether Reynolds suggested and organized Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club with the knowledge of the Clinton campaign or go-betweens for the Clinton campaign.

Using cache recovery and other techniques, a BuzzFlash reader recovered the key blog entry that Errol Louis quoted from before it was deleted.

These are, allegedly, Rev. Reynolds’ words of support for Clinton and explanation as to why she voted for Clinton in Maryland:

Using Google’s cache and examining the source code of the deleted entry, I have been able to reconstruct the posting from Barbara Reynolds’ blog (http://reynoldsworldnews.blogspot.com/) dated February 14, 2008, titled "HOPE", in which Barbara Reynolds, the person who supposedly organized Rev. Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club, praises and thanks the Clintons.

The URL of the Google Cache is here:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:SIgvOo…
and the text I retrieved is here:

Hope

February 14, 2008

Never before has the political clout of African-American women been so crucial as in this presidential race when they make up as high as two-thirds of registered black voters. Black women voters are the primary reason why Senator Barack Obama pulled Oprah and Senator Clinton garnered Maya Angelo and the majority of the black women in the Congressional Black Caucus in their respective camps.

As expected Sen. Barack Obama trounced Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Chesapeake Trifecta of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

With most of my Maryland and DC friends beating the drum for Sen. Obama, I tried to join the parade. Usually I am a drum major, leading momentum, but not this time.

Like many African American women, I have struggled with the dilemma of selecting a black man or a white woman to go against warmonger Sen. John McCain. My problem was that both Senators Obama and Clinton are darn good.

Finally I voted for Senator Clinton. My first reason was that as seductive as Obama’s mantra of hope, the Clintons legacy of help is more substantive and stronger.

Hope by definition is not based on facts. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time.

How do you abandon someone like Hillary Clinton, who at every opportunity worked for causes benefiting the poor, especially children? Her work began in her early days with her mentor Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and at Yale Law School, where she pursued children’s studies. Early on her stated life’s goal was to be a "voice for America’s children."

Look how different things would be that before any policy, rather foreign or domestic, could be advanced, the fate of our children would be the first consideration, a value that I believe Clinton would bring to the table as president.

Under Bill, this nation championed diversity. With Bill and Hillary as first Lady in the White House, black unemployment declined, small business loans to African-American doubled, there was strong support for affirmative action and more blacks in his Cabinet and in high positions than ever before. In addition, Hillary made history by selecting a black woman, Maggie Williams, as her chief of staff. To offset plummeting election returns, Williams has been promoted to head her campaign staff.

In fact during the Clinton years, the nation experienced the longest economic boom in history: unemployment dropped from 7.5% to 4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of stocks rose from 3,200 points to over 10,000, and the federal budget rose from a quarter-trillion-dollar deficit to a surplus of nearly that much.

Now since one Clinton cleaned up the first mess created by Bush I, why not let another Clinton clean up the mess created by Bush Light and why not a woman?

Traditionally, I have sympathized or cast my lot with the "underperson," the one needlessly being picked on or ridiculed. Media treatment of Senator Clinton has been degrading.

Much of the news media have gone bonkers over Senator Obama, pandering and refusing to ask tough questions, while intensely and sometimes nastily grilling Senator Clinton. Pundits continue to stress that Clinton is "polarizing," and that 41 percent of voters say they won’t vote for her as if to cement a self-defeating prophecy.

When the Clintons were in office, I worked at the executive levels of journalism. It was overwhelming to see how many white men, even liberals, detested Hillary not only because she is a woman but because she did not play it safe and took on controversial issues, such as trying to win health care for the more than 44 million people who can’t afford it. She lost the fight, but it took courage to start it and I believe she deserves another chance to win it.

Atty. James Walker, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, explains the disparate treatment this way: "In light of issues like the Don Imus firings, neither politicians nor the press want to go near anything racist. The public environment has been sanitized toward political correctness, but there are no holds on sexism. That is why there can be open season on Senator Clinton."

"Hillary is getting the benefit of Bill’s baggage, his dirt from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but Obama is getting a clean slate because of the guilt recently brought to the forefront of how America has treated blacks. That means an easy walk for Obama and the opposite for Senator Clinton," Walker said.

I also find it troublesome that so many influential Republican conservatives are confessing their love for Senator Obama. When people who are my enemies become friends of my friends, I am just naturally suspicious.

In any event, Sen. Obama, tall, brilliant, handsome, with a wonderful wife and a message of hope would make a good president, but I embrace Clinton because at the highest levels they have helped make life better for African-Americans. My vote for Hillary in the Maryland Primary was my way of saying Thank You.

Could all be a coincidence, but that’s one heck of a Clintonian coincidence to be sure.

Here ther be Grues. and other disaffected voters.

Administrator — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:17:30 +0000

Barack Obama did well with Democrats across both race and gender lines Tuesday night, and seems to be eating away at Hillary Clinton’s backbone of support: women.

According to exit polls out of both Virginia and Maryland, in both states Obama won roughly 60 percent of the female vote — a demographic that has carried Clinton to success in past primaries.

Clinton even fared worse among men – more than two-thirds in both states chose Obama.

Meanwhile, the Illinois senator scored his highest percentage of African-American support to date — winning close to 90 percent of that voting bloc in each state. And the two evenly split the white vote in Virginia, while Clinton slightly beat Obama among the white vote in Maryland. In most past primaries, Clinton has held an edge among white voters.

Obama even beat Clinton among Latino voters, a group that his heavily favored Clinton in most past primaries. In Virginia and Maryland, Latinos went for Obama over Clinton by 6 points, though their support was not decisive in either contest – only 5 percent of Democratic primary voters in Virginia, and 4 percent in Maryland, were Latino.

The only demographic Clinton won was white women, who broke for her over Obama by 10 points in Virginia and 13 points in Maryland. But that margin is significantly smaller than the national average on Super Tuesday. She beat Obama among white women by 25 points then, according to national exit polls.

The grapes, they be sour

Administrator — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:12:28 +0000

For the second election night in a row, Hillary Clinton failed to acknowledge or congratulate Barack Obama after he won the day in dominating fashion.

On Tuesday in El Paso, hours after Virginia had been called for Obama, she stuck to her “Texas campaign kickoff” message and did not stray from an energetic, Lone Star-themed stump speech. She did mention Obama by name, only to chide his health care plan.

On Saturday night in Richmond, Virginia, Clinton spoke to a crowd of thousands at the state’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, but she ignored Obama’s quartet of blowout primary and caucus wins that day as well (Obama also won the Maine caucuses the next day).

The courtesy of conceding a primary or caucus loss — and then congratulating your opponent — is by no means required. But it has become standard practice during campaign season.

Clinton congratulated Obama and John Edwards after their first and second place finishes in the Iowa caucuses. Obama returned the favor in New Hampshire, saying Clinton “did an outstanding job.” That courtesy continued through the early states.

But as the race has shifted to a delegate chase with dozens of states in play around the country, the notion of congratulating one’s opponent seems, for Clinton, to have fallen by the wayside.

Politics as Hillary (oops, I mean ‘usual’)

Administrator — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:40:06 +0000

An anti-Obama e-mail sent by a Clinton volunteer is causing a stir in Iowa.

(CNN) — One of the recipients of a controversial anti-Barack Obama email forward that put Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaign on the defensive Wednesday said the volunteer county coordinator who sent the original message may have been unfairly targeted.

“She thinks people misunderstood her intent,” said Gary Hart, who said he spoke with the volunteer, Judy Rose, a short time ago. The former Clinton volunteer insisted “she was just sending it along so people know what kind of information is out there,” not because she believed the charges herself. He added that Rose is baffled by the uproar.

The controversy began early Wednesday when an Iowa supporter of presidential candidate Chris Dodd posted a comment on the liberal Daily Kos Web site, accusing an unnamed Clinton volunteer of forwarding an anti-Muslim e-mail aimed at the Illinois senator, containing charges that have been widely discredited.

The e-mail — one of several hoaxes that have been circulating since the Illinois senator announced his candidacy — claims that Obama is a Muslim whose campaign is part of a plot to destroy the United States. Obama is not, and never has been, a Muslim.

Within minutes, Clinton Internet Director Peter Daou posted a message from campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle disavowing the remarks. The New York senator’s campaign immediately severed all links with Rose, a Jones County volunteer.

The war of words between both candidates, who are running neck and neck in Iowa polls less than a month before Election Day, has reached a fever pitch over the past week. Within the past few days, both have asked supporters to track attacks and “dirty tricks” aimed at their campaigns.

The Obama campaign is not commenting on the incident.