Congrats Russert! You got the OBAMA headline you were fishing for!

[wndycty]

Of course there are DUers who will bash him for his response, but the reality is Russert was setting him up, I feel he had no business asking Obama about Belafonte.

Obama won't join Belafonte's chorus
Pans likening security agency to Gestapo, calling Bush terrorist

By Jeff Zeleny
Washington Bureau
Published January 23, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama on Sunday gently criticized two comments by civil rights activist Harry Belafonte in which he called the Department of Homeland Security a "new Gestapo" and referred to President Bush as "the greatest terrorist in the world."

"I never use Nazi analogies because I think that those were unique," Obama (D-Ill.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press." But he added: "I think people are rightly concerned that we strike the right balance between our concerns for civil liberties and the uniform concern that all of us have about protecting ourselves from terrorism."

As for the remark about the president, Obama said: "I don't think it's appropriate. That's not language that I would use, but keep in mind one of the great things about the United States is all of our citizens have the right to speak our minds about what's going on politically."

In his first appearance on the high-profile Sunday talk show since being sworn into office, Obama also was asked to respond an assertion last week by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) that the Bush administration "will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
-snip-

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0601230146jan23,1,151477.story?coll=chi-news-hed

From the thread I started on this subject yesterday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x208936

[CatWoman]

1. Personally

I like the way Obama handled it.

[mattclearing]

2. Yeah, he handled it really well. Too smart for Russert's amateur hour. nt

[GrumpyGreg]

4. I do too---Obama has CLASS-something that has been missing

in Washington for a long time.

[izzybeans]

5. Me too. He just used more 'diplomatic' language.

The jist of the critique was the same. An agressor with no ability to sit down and reason with his opponent. Yelling terrorist and traitor at each other all day might not get the discussion going very far me thinks. It feels right but it only works with the right audience. When that audience includes your opponents, then perhaps just sticking with substance will do. Harry's words were appropriate for their context, so were Obama's IMHO.

[w13rd0]

13. Yep...

...I agree. He basically said, "I wouldn't use that kind of language." He didn't say he necessarily disagrees with the meaning of the statements.

[gratuitous]

18. Except that by answering the question at all

It lent some legitimacy to the idea that Obama is somehow responsible for what Belafonte said, as if all the Negroes get together on Wednesday afternoons on the Maryland Eastern Shore for fried chicken and watermelon to decide what they all think.

If Pumpkinhead Russert has a problem with Harry Belafonte, why doesn't he have Belafonte on his show for a little give-and-take? Or is Timmy afraid he'd sing "Day-O" off key and embarrass himself? Does Russert ask Trent Lott to respond to Rush Limbaugh? Or does he ask Orrin Hatch to explain what Pat Robertson meant? Why is it okay for Russert to ask Obama about what Belafonte said?

In my opinion, the proper response by Obama should have been an icy stare and stony silence - perhaps with one or two of the questions from the preceding paragraph. Because anything else gets into the reports afterward as either "Obama disagrees with Belafonte - Belafonte's a nutjob!" or "Obama agrees with Belafonte - they're both nutjobs" in the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose reportage indulged in by the Fourth Estate.

[Flubadubya]

25. Amen!

[0007]

30. Very good. It would have been a gas if Obama would have ask

Tim after his icy stare, if he ever ask Trent Lott to respond to some of Rush Limbaugh's remarks, just to get his point across.

[wndycty]

31. We can all second guess Barack. . .

. . .but we are not Barack.

[Mass]

3. The only issue to be upset about is why Russert reserves his questions

concerning Bellafonte or Farrakhan to African American politicians.

[tuvor]

6. Russert's done this before.

From Huffington Post: An astute blogger tells us about the only other time (based on a preliminary search) that Russert asked a guest about Belafonte. And who was that guest? Why, Colin Powell.... Do the math.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/014258

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Becasue Powell is a Republican?

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DanCa]

9. Obama is still a first termer guys.

He still has to play the game until he learns the ropes. It's like in boxing Obama wants to pile on the points before he goes for the big knock out.

[Triana]

10. I personally think those were fine, very well-worded responses...

...good for Obama. He didn't give ground or demonize those who made the comments, and still managed to reinforce them in an intelligent, understated, non-hysterical and non-hateful way. Perfect.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Belafonte is "too liberal" for Obama.

Typical response from a politician.

[wtmusic]

12. Barack going out on a limb

"People are rightly concerned strike that we uniform protecting terrorism liberties, civil blah concerns and the between right ourselves terrorism blah blah all of us about rightly!" :eyes:

With leaders like that, who needs lapdogs?

[oc2002]

14. Obama strikes me as a guttless weasel DLC, Republican Lite.

If he is the future of the dems, they will continue to lose and lose and lose untill they are a nothing more than a joke of a party.

Belafonte has balls, Obama needs to buy some.

[wtmusic]

15. thank you

I was searching for just the right words; you found them. :thumbsup:

[wndycty]

16. Its good to see the Obama bashers have shown up. . .

. . .what does Belafonte have to lose? What does Obama have to lose? For him to continue serving the people of Illinois he has to be diplomatic, don't forget outside of the Chicago metropolitan area Illinois is a red state. Obama is very conscious of that, to bad some DUers don't get it.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[RazzleDazzle]

23. That level of "diplomacy" is what got us where we are

which is living in a fully fascist state -- but without the full-fledged recognition of that by the media, most of the public, and far too many of our elected leaders (so called).

That level of "diplomacy" could justifiably be equated with Neville Chamberlain.

That level of "diplomacy" is counterproductive to where we need to go, which if fullout truth telling a la John Conyers, Jerold Nadler, Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney, as well as folks like Jonathan Turley, Mark Crispin Miller, etc.

That level of "diplomacy" is forgiveable (barely) if it's due to ignorance. If not, it's due to fear -- fear of facing the truth, fear of speaking it. It doesn't matter, though, he's useless to us and serves as an outright obstruction to saving this democratic republic, which is to say that either through his ignorance or through his fear, he is actively helping the Bush adminstration in their continuing fascist takeover.

[Javaman]

17. Obama is great at speaches, but that's it. He never puts up...

anything behind them. I also thought he was the future, a Democratic party with balls.
As someone else said on here, he's a repube lite. All he's worried about is getting reelected and not standing up for what is right.

[sui generis]

19. The only thing I want from my politicians is RESULTS

I could give a flip about "class" and "poise" and all the other "frosting" on the cake. Give me the cake; that's what's important.

Once you get overly concerned about image you are by definition less concerned with substance. If you are concerned enough about "image" and having "class" then you can easily be manipulated by that concern, and you can't get those minutes and heartbeats back.

[wndycty]

21. Well in politics image has a direct impact on results. . .

. . .I agree substance over style is the way we go. We get that with Obama, but unlike W he is more careful about how he spends his politcal capital and more importantly he is going to continue to build it.

[still_one]

22. this is pure bs and gossip

Harry Belafonte can be much more free with his words then those Obama can. What I find more interesting is that did russert only ask Obama about Belafonte's comments or did he ask white people also

In other words, is it because Harry Belafonte is black, that Russert was so inclined to ask Obama about it?

If so it expresses Russert's latent racists tendencies

[tuvor]

24. Check post #6. n/t

[still_one]

26. Thanks

[Imagevision]

27. Obama would certainly give Bill Clinton a run for his money

[SPKrazy]

28. Well come on now, Obama and Belafonte are both, um, males

surely that was the only reason he wondered what Obama thought about Belafonte?

:sarcasm:

[LSK]

29. Russert was intentionally asking over the top questions

He was trying to pin Obama. I felt uncomfortable with such questions. Obama might as well have been on FOXNEWs.

Russert went on later in that show to try to mislead everyone into thinking the Dems got money from Abramoff.

Russert showed his true colors as a disgusting corporate whore.