Moonage Political Webdream

MSNBC did a fluff piece on a missing Obama “thesis” from 1984.  Although Jim Popkin does a decent job presenting several sides to the “controversy”, he does the unthinkable and lets an Obama critic get the last word in.

Now, up until the last word, this story, as with a lot of Obama stories, gets muddled and confusing and leads to no answer.  Here’s the gyst:

1. Obama claimed he wrote a “thesis” in college on Russian nuclear relations.
2. When pressed, he said he doesn’t have, or lost, said “thesis”.
3. Columbia could not find a copy of said “thesis”.  Mainly because,
4. Undergraduate students did not write a “thesis” in 1983.
5. Obama’s professor, after donating $1,250 to Obama’s campaign, said that Obama did indeed write a “thesis” for his class, as everyone else did.  It was not spectacular in any way and apparently did not stand out from all the other students in his class that wrote the non-reuqired year-long non-thesis.
6. So, when pressed, Obama’s campaign manager agreed that there never was a “thesis” that Obama claimed to have written and lost.
7. David Bossie, who has nothing else to do with this story, claims that if Obama does not have the non-required non-thesis that no one claims to possess or ever required, then he must have lied when he said he wrote one.
8. 90% of the reactions to the article attack David Bossie for pointing out the obvious.

Now, my personal take on this is Obama wrote a very big “report” in 1983 for his class.  I wrote a lot of very big “reports” when I was in college.  I however, was never required, and therefore never went out of my way, to claim I ever wrote a “thesis”.  So, my take is Obama just stretched things just a tad to make them sound more educated.  Who would have ever thought people would have cared if he substituted “thesis” for “report”?  The bottom line is he attended, excelled, and graduated law school.  The scond bottom line is, he keeps undermining his own credibility with stupid gaffes.  The media is pretty much ignoring McCain completely.  Right now I think that’s a good thing.  As the media spotlight keeps getting hotter and hotter on Obama, he keeps giving people reason to suspect his credibility.  Some are big, some are small.  But, they just add up over time. 

Now, the reason for the title of this post is I don’t necessarily think Obama is getting a free ride from the media.  Although 90% of the comments attacked David Bossie for claiming Obama lied about the “thesis”, it wasn’t Bossie who printed the story, it was Jim Popkin via MSNBC.  Not exactly your typical right-wing propeganda vehicle.  Those commentors are completely ignoring the vehicle and attacking the content as if it was the content that presented the story. 

That’s just bizarre to me.

If the media keeps “loving” Obama like this, I can’t see how those people writing those bizarre comments can keep ignoring the “love”.

Technorati Tags: barack, Columbia, david bossie, jim popkin, lost, msnbc, obama, report, thesis

Tags: barack, Columbia, david bossie, jim popkin, lost, msnbc, obama, report, thesis

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