Washington Post Recycles False Obama Muslim Rumors On Front Page
November 29, 2007 -- 10:10 AM EST // //

Updated below.

Digby and BarbinMD have already dealt heavy blows to today's reprehensible Washington Post piece that recycles the rumors that Obama is a Muslim on the paper's front page.

But I wanted to add a couple more points about the story, because it really is a top contender for the title of Worst Hit Piece of Campaign 2008.

The piece opens with the following headline:

Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him

It's dismal enough that WaPo's free acknowledgment that these are rumors didn't stop the paper's editors from running this garbage on its front page. What's even worse is the fact that it doesn't get around to explaining the substance of Obama's denial of these rumors until the 12th paragraph.

Incredibly, this denial comes after the piece tells readers that polls show that the public is hostile to electing someone who is Muslim to the Presidency. In other words, WaPo's editors thought that public hostility towards having a Muslim President is more important for readers to know about than the niggling details about whether the subject of these rumors on the paper's front page is actually Muslim or not.

Even more absurdly, WaPo frames the denial this way:

Obama aides sharply disputed the initial stories suggesting that he was a Muslim, and in Iowa, the campaign keeps a letter at its offices, signed by five members of the local clergy, vouching for the candidate's Christian faith. Aware that his religious belief remains an issue, Obama has denied a separate charge: that he does not hold his hand to his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. This rumor stemmed from a photo that was taken while the national anthem was being played.

WaPo is presenting this as if this is still a matter of dispute, rather than something that's already been thoroughly debunked. Also note that Obama's denial is packaged here with yet another rumor designed to portray Obama as unpatriotic.

It's hard to believe, but it actually gets worse still. WaPo tells its readers that one of the early causes of the Muslim rumor was a report in Insight magazine which said Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." The only rebuttal of this that WaPo offered was that Obama himself had denied this. The paper didn't bother to tell its readers that CNN actually spoke with a top official at the school who said that it wasn't a madrassa. CNN properly labled the madrassa report "false."

Yet WaPo only told you that Obama "denied" this. Man alive, that's just awful.

It really is hard to imagine how an allegedly reputable paper like WaPo let something like this happen. If WaPo public editor Deborah Howell and/or media critic Howard Kurtz don't dig into this one, a lot of folks, probably including some at the paper itself, will be mighty pissed off about it. And rightly so.

Debbie? You there?

Howie?

Update: The writer of the piece has now responded to all the criticism.

To reach the homepage of this blog, click here. Comments section temporarily disabled.

---

---