Posted on 08/28/2008 7:13:53 AM PDT by AnnaZ
by John McCormick and Steve Schmadeke
DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.
"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."
Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical.
The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.
Obama's campaign is urging supporters to call the radio station to complain.
"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."
Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response was strong.
"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," he said. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."
Christenson said the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show and the headquarters declined the request.
"He got into the files just yesterday, so we wanted to have him on to find out what he found and, if at all possible, we wanted to get the Obama campaign to get their side of the story," Christenson said. "That's why the uproar is kind of amazing, because we wanted the Obama campaign's take as well to kind of balance it out."
The show's producer said the calls dropped off after the show's first hour. He did not have a count of calls, but said it was "non-stop."
Obama's campaign has launched similar offensives against stations that have run campaign ads that it did not like.
Posted by John McCormick on August 27, 2008 11:02 PM
They are almost the same tactics that he used against his opponents in running for state senate in Illinois. He used every objection he could come up with to systematically dis-qualify every DEM primary opponent from the ballot so that he essentially ran unopposed to the election. THEN he aimed his sights at the REPUBLICAN opponent. He was able to pull some strings in the Illinois judiciary and got his opponent's SEALED DIVORCE RECORDS UNSEALED and release some embarrassing info to the public, so that he essentially dropped out.......OBAMA IS WORSE THAN CLINTON EVER THOUGHT ABOUT BEING! JUST WAIT TIL HE GETS THE IRS AND THE FBI AND THE REST OF THE POWER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT UNDER HIS CONTROL! ROBERT MUGABE WILL LOOK LIKE A WANNABE.................
” a slimy character assassin like Kurtz “Wow, that is a stretch!
They also call him a "right-wing hatchet man" and a "smear merchant".
*rolls eyes*
” a slimy character assassin like Kurtz “
Do they project much?
That page has a link on it for listen now, which will give you the podcast of last night's show. You might want to look at the links on the left hand side, to two articles about Obama the community organizer which give even more disturbing information about the Obamessiah.
The Left can’t stand conflicting opinions. They view themselves as the most enlightened and most moral people in America. If you don’t agree with them, you’re unenlightened and immoral. Why should they listen to anyone else?
Doesn’t matter how big they are when gov’t guns are involved, ie, when the fairness doctrine is the law of the land.
Just look at the language the Obama camp uses!
What a bunch of guttersnipes!
Did you ever see anything like that from a Republican Presidential campaign?
These punks are street thugs.
And their hysteria is showing!
The only time he lost was to Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther.
WGN has survived a looongtime
I’d love to know who is the power behind Obama. Soros? There has been money and power pushing him for many years. Chicoms?
If Nobama cannot stand the heat in the kitchen right now, what in he%% will he do when he has to deal with dictators from other countries???
IF Bambi gets elected, or possibly even if McCain is President,
the Fairness Doctrine will again be attempted,
but this time, it will go to the USSC and be struck down.
There’s a lot of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Remember Clinton’s Indonesian connection?.........
Seems like his mentors and helpers were radical leftovers from the 1960’s. People like that never learn anything, and they never stop trying to impose their ideology on everyone else.
What’s interesting is that Milt Rosenberg is a professor at the University of Chicago. He’s center-left—hard to categorize, perhaps even a bit center-right, fairminded, genuinely curious to know things. He’s not some lunatic fringe right-winger.
And he knows Hyde Park. I don’t know if he actually lives in Hyde Park or not, but he knows the whole neighborhood from decades of experience. So he comes right out of Obama’s backyard, so to speak. Which means he knows Billy-Boy Ayers’s backyard, so to speak.
I was very pleased to see him give a platform to Stanley Kurtz.
That the Obama folks tried to bully him and WGN is very telling. I don’t think they’ll get away with it. I don’t expect Rosenberg can be intimidated—he’s way too much of a fixture. I’m a bit surprised that the Obamaites tried it. But then again, their lawsuit against the 527 Ayers ad was also a bullying tactic that may well backfire, so perhaps they really don’t realize what’s good for them.
Or perhaps they’re desperate.
Well. If it ever happens, look for the internet to be hardest hit.
Its a lot harder to shut down the shortwave airwaves, unless you use jammers like China does
Thanks for the link....
did my small part...sent message and feel ;-)
“Obama tactics sound like those employed in some banana republics, if true”
Recall that the Clinton campaigns and WH tenure had a goon squad devoted to intimidation of critics and girl friends. I believe Rahn was on that squad, plus others who are in big-time jobs today.
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