Reply #64: Misinformation Campaign Backfires on Obama --read all of it first--then reply: [View All]

[rodeodance]

http://pundits.thehill.com/2007/10/24/misinformation-campaign-backfires-on-obama/


October 24, 2007
Misinformation Campaign Backfires on Obama (Lanny Davis)
@ 12:48 pm

For some time I have heard repeated misstatements, even down to using the exact words, concerning Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) support for the Senate resolution, S. Amendment 3017, enacted Sept. 26, 2007 by a 76-22 vote (called the “Kyl-Lieberman Amendment”). The resolution designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization.” Weeks ago I heard supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) charging — again using almost identical words — that Sen. Clinton had supported a resolution that “would allow President Bush to go to war with Iran.”

Then I discovered three facts that could not be disputed:

— The resolution did not in any way allow such military intervention as a result of such designation;

— Many anti-Iraq war Democrats, including Sen. Obama’s senior colleague, Dick Durbin of Illinois (D), also supported the resolution; and

— Sen. Obama had co-sponsored a similar resolution — S. 970 — along with 67 other senators just six months ago, in March 2007. I also determined that many anti-Iraq war Democrats who opposed any possible authorization for President Bush to intervene militarily in Iran also supported the resolution.

Yet The New York Times, in what is usually its thoughtful and balanced Sunday “News and Review” section on Sunday, Oct. 14, published a front-page, left-hand lead article with the headline, “Clinton’s Iran Vote: The Fallout.” The author, Helene Cooper, quoted several on-record critical comments about “Senator Clinton and other legislators who voted for this bill” from a Mr. Karim Sadjapour, described as “an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.”
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