OBAMARAMA

In what has become a ridiculous and inexplicable pattern, The Politico’s Mike Allen has penned yet another gratuitous and insubstantial attack piece on Sen. Obama and cloaked it in the guise of “political journalism.”

Titled “Rookie Mistakes Plague Obama,” the article documents exactly zero instances of what could reasonably be classified as rookie mistakes, opting instead to harp on the sort of unimpressive minutiae that could be found in any campaign.

It opens breathlessly by suggesting that Sen. Obama is disingenuous when he condemns the practice of having lobbyists write legislation, since he once voted for and (gasp!) publicized his support of a Senate energy bill. But nowhere does Allen provide evidence that the bill was written by energy lobbyists, something he would need to do to support his implied charge of hypocrisy.

Nor does Allen note that the bipartisan bill included substantial funding for alternative fuel development, did not open the Arctic to drilling (as the House version did), and addressed “the concerns of Democrats and environmentalists that more needs to be done to conserve energy and develop cleaner energy alternatives,” according to an actual newspaper, The Washington Post.

(Read more after the jump…)

Once again, The Politico manages to take a perfectly benign — some might even say positive — news story about Sen. Obama and twist it into something ugly.

As has been widely reported in much less loaded tones, the Federal Election Commission ruled yesterday on Sen. Obama’s request that he have the option to return money raised for the general election in order to accept public matching funds. The FEC declared that he could.

Yet, rather than reporting that Sen. Obama’s request was accepted and that he is now well-positioned to challenge his Republican opponent to accept matching funds (something, as we’ve noted, they will feel pressure to do — especially if they are Sen. John McCain), Politico writer Kenneth P. Vogel opted instead to headline his article “Obama Ruling Could Prove Moot, Backfire.”

What is his evidence for this claim? I’m glad you asked.

(Read more after the jump…)

Media Matters points us toward an article in Washington’s new political media site dedicated to “covering the politics of Capitol Hill and of the presidential campaign…with enterprise, style, and impact,” The Politico:

In a February 12 article in The Politico on Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) “peevish” comments “accus[ing] the media of ignoring his substantive record and falsely depicting him as a lightweight,” senior political writer Ben Smith claimed that Obama “hasn’t sponsored any legislation that would affect the way Americans live their daily lives.”

The Media Matters piece goes on to handily debunk this inaccurate and irresponsible claim. As they note, Sen. Obama introduced 152 bills in the last Congress, including bills “to create a federal standard for renewable diesel fuel (S.1426), to improve benefits and services for members of the armed forces and veterans (S.3988), and to direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish guidelines for tracking spent fuel rods.”

Not to mention the legislation Sen. Obama has proposed since January:

Among the bills Obama has recently introduced, one would “improve benefits and services for members of the Armed Forces, veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, and other veterans.” Obama introduced another bill “[t]o promote the national security and stability of the economy of the United States by reducing the dependence of the United States on oil through the rise of alternative fuels and new technology.” Further, on January 30, Obama introduced a bill (the official text of which is not yet available) that, according to Obama’s January 30 Senate floor speech on the bill, would “cap[] the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the number in Iraq on January 10, 2007 — the day the President gave his ’surge speech’ to the nation” and would require the process of troop withdrawal from Iraq to begin on May 1 with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Unfortunately, attacking Sen. Obama is becoming something of a trend for the new political publication, as we’ve noted here:

• After being denied an interview with Sen. Obama, Politico reporter Mike Allen wrote a bitter and negative article diagramming the potential attacks his opponents could make against him in the primary, essentially providing an anti-Obama blueprint and making the case for his defeat in the guise of “news.”

• Allen also falsely suggested that Sen. Obama has been dishonest about the origin of his first name, since at different times he has said that it is both Swahili and Arabic. In fact, one minute of research revealed that it’s both.

• Reporter Ben Smith baselessly insinuated in a blog entry that Sen. Obama was responsible for the implosion of the campaign of his Republican opponent in his 2004 Senate race, Jack Ryan, when even the article he cites points out that “Rumors about allegations in Ryans’ divorce documents swirled during the GOP primary, but Ryan steadfastly refused to release them.”

The Politico claims its reporters cover politics with “enterprise, style, and impact” — a list from which objectivity is conspicuously absent. Hopefully, in the months ahead, that will change.

In yet another display of how rattled they are by his candidacy, the political right greeted Sen. Obama’s official entrance into the 2008 presidential race with a barrage of asinine political gunfire.

After conservative Australian PM John Howard’s bizarre and flailing remarks about how, if he was in al Qaida, he’d pray for Sen. Obama to win, a “senior White House official” felt the urge to weigh in (though apparently without the guts to do so by name), saying that “Prime Minister Howard knows that setting a timeline for a withdrawal sends the wrong signal to our enemies.”

Media Matters for America also documents an anti-Obama media trifecta, with MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson saying of Sen. Obama’s church that “it’s hard to call that Christianity,” ABC News’ Jake Tapper incessantly spotlighting Sen. Obama’s middle name, and The Politico’s Mike Allen claiming Sen. Obama has lied about the origin of his first name, asking, “Why has he sometimes said his first name is Arabic, and other times Swahili?” (Answer: “the Swahili word ‘baraka,’ meaning “blessing,” is derived from the Arabic word ‘bariki.’” Though, to be fair, Allen couldn’t have been expected to know this fact, since it would have required research.)

And, for the finale, rightwing commentator Bill Kristol called Sen. Obama’s message “the opposite of Lincoln,” who said that “we cannot live as a house divided on slavery,” since Sen. Obama is merely asking “Can’t we all get along?” We could point out how untrue this is, how Lincoln also demanded the country “get along” and work together to overcome its obstacles, how both Lincoln and Sen. Obama addressed a divided nation with a message of unity — but this comment is actually so absurd that it forfeits its right to be discussed: