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Family Told Obama NOT To Wear Soldier Son's Bracelet... Where is Media?
Newsbusters ^ | September 28, 2008 | Warner Todd Huston

Posted on 09/28/2008 4:12:21 AM PDT by Tom_Busch

Barack Obama played the "me too" game during the Friday debates on September 26 after Senator John McCain mentioned that he was wearing a bracelet with the name of Cpl. Matthew Stanley, a resident of New Hampshire and a soldier that lost his life in Iraq in 2006. Obama said that he too had a bracelet. After fumbling and straining to remember the name, he revealed that his had the name of Sergeant Ryan David Jopek of Merrill, Wisconsin.

Shockingly, however, Madison resident Brian Jopek, the father of Ryan Jopek, the young soldier who tragically lost his life to a roadside bomb in 2006, recently said on a Wisconsin Public Radio show that his family had asked Barack Obama to stop wearing the bracelet with his son's name on it. Yet Obama continues to do so despite the wishes of the family

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; 2008debates; bracelet; braceletgate; elections; jopek; mccain; nobama08; obama
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To: Citizen Soldier

Juan is a member of the loyal opposition on Fox. He does generally speak from a more principled position than most of the kool-aid drinkers on CNN and MSNBC.


181 posted on 09/28/2008 9:48:36 AM PDT by JrsyJack
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To: Roscoe Karns

LOL!


182 posted on 09/28/2008 10:01:35 AM PDT by GVnana ("I once dressed as Tina Fey for Halloween." - Sarah Palin)
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To: Tom_Busch

I’ve long since stopped thinking the media will ever call out Obama or any other Dem when something like this happens. It’s easy to imagine all nets breaking in simultaneously to report this if it were someone telling McCain to stop wearing the bracelet.

However, the McCain campaign and any 527s that may want to be against Obama have done an extremely poor job with their media buys at least in the three major markets in Ohio. I spent two nights and days in each in the past week and tend to keep the TV on in my hotel between meetings. Let me tell you, the ads were running 3-1 in Obama’s favor and DCCC was hammering Schuring hard. I didn’t see a single ORP, RNC, or Republican 527 ad. I saw the same McCain ad where he vaguely makes references to Obama being a tax-and-spend liberal... none of the cool ads I see on YouTube or the McCain website. No Biden and coal. No Obama and Johnson or Raines. None of that. Just the same old ad.

The only way for McCain’s message to get out to swing voters is through the ads and the mail. It’s not getting done. Period.

I really think McCain’s media people have gone to sleep in Ohio. Also, I tried to drop in at the one in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday and they were closed, despite what the website said their hours were.

I had a lot of hope for the McCain campaign after the Palin pick. I thought they had competent professionals at the top (which may still be the case) and in the middle (which is certainly not the case).

Also, why is it that you can’t go 100 yards in heavy-GOP but sparsely-populate counties without seeing a McCain or McCain-Palin sign but in the swing and large-population county where I live, you can’t find them in anyone’s yards and the HQ hasn’t had any in weeks?


183 posted on 09/28/2008 10:02:39 AM PDT by Saab-driving Yuppie
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To: Tom_Busch; All
Here is a homemade transcript with time hacks from the interview:

10:04 Host: Let's fast forward to the present time now. Just a few weeks ago, in the Wisconsin Primary Election, there was a speech by Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, who was wearing Ryan's military bracelet, a bracelet that your wife Tracy and your daughter Jessica gave to him during an appearance in Green Bay:

10:25 Obama: We're here because of the mother that I met in Gr Green Bay Wisconsin, who gave me this bracelet I'm wearing. Inscribed on it is the name of her son Ryan. He was 20 when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Next to his name it says he gave...all gave some, but he gave all. We are here because it is time to ask ourselves as a nation if we are serving Ryan and his compatriots and all our young brave men and women as well as they are serving us. They need us to end this war and bring them home and give them the care and the benefits that they deserve. They need change, Houston.

11:22. MOBERG: For better or for worse, Brian, your son's sacrifice has now become part of the political campaign. Can you tell us why Tracy wanted to give him the bracelet to the extent that you can, because I know that you personally don't want to become, or at least I imagine you don't want to become part of the political conversation here.

11:39 JOPEK: Well, and I want to make clear that Tracy and I are no longer married. She is my ex-wife, but, Basically, Glenn, from what I understood from e-mail exchanges with Tracy and reading some of the stories that came out at the time. She just wanted to put a name. You know. She wanted Mr. Obama to know Ryan's name. That's all. It's just something she inteded to just hand to him. She wasn't looking to turn it into a big media event, which, you know, of course that's what it ended out being. She just wanted it to be something between Barack Obama and herself. And actually, because of actually some of the negative feedback she's gotten on the Internet, Internet blogs, accusing Obama of trying to get votes doing it and that sort of thing. She has turned down any subsequent interviews with the media, because she just didn't want it to get turned into something that it wasn't. So, and I, (12:59) she had told me in an e-mail that she had actually asked Mr. Obama to not wear the bracelet any more in any of his public appearances which, I don't think he's

13:14 MOBERG: And it's been a while since he's brought it up.

13:16 JOPEK: Right, but, well, the other night I was watching the news he was on speaking somewhere and he was still wearing it on his right wrist. I could see it on his right wrist. So that's his own choice. That's something Barack Obama that's a choice that he continues to wear it, despite Tracy asking him not to because she is a Barack Obama supporter and she didn't want to do anything to sabotage his campaign, uh, so if he's still wearing the bracelet then that, of course, is entirely up to him.

13:53 MOBERG: Maybe there's a difference between wearing it and bringing it up in your speeches.

13:58 JOPEK: Sure, could be.

14:00 MOBERG: Well, for better or for worse, Brian, it has been five years. This has become a political issue now. Polls show that the majority of Americans no longer support the Iraq war now but are conflicted on how to leave. How long can we sustain this conflict, or any conflict, if it doesn't have the support of the American people.

14:22 JOPEK: Well, I guess, I obviously, I am just an E-6, so that is well above my pay grade, from a military standpoint. I guess the only thing I can say is that whatever is decided I hope that it's something that is going to benefit not only our people, our service people, but, in the long run, the Iraqi people as well because we don't...even as much money's been spent, as many lives have been lost, including my oldest boy, we don't want to do anything any more screwy than I guess you know some people can say, some people have said, some people argue have been done to this point. You want to make the job is done. You know, we're there, and we don't have to...

15:20 HOST: You don't want to make things worse

15:22 JOPEK: ...Well, you don't want to go back in ten years and try to fix it again and lose even more people and spend a bunch more money and to do it all over again. I guess, whatever's decided, whether there's a Republican in office or a Democrat in office I sincerely hope they look at the big picture and pull up stakes, or pop smoke, as we say in the military, just because of the political atmosphere.

The clip (MP3) can be found here.

184 posted on 09/28/2008 10:04:08 AM PDT by markomalley (Extra ecclesiam nulla salus)
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To: JrsyJack

Oh there’s certainly a hesitance to publicly supporting people other than Obama. Heck, I was called a bigot for not supporting Hillary (as if sexism is the only reason not to), that said, more than half at work seem genuinely rabid in their support of Obama.


185 posted on 09/28/2008 10:09:35 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: Roscoe Karns

A necklace from Flavor Flav! Bahahaha!

That was a close call, almost sprayed my laptop with hot tea!


186 posted on 09/28/2008 10:23:03 AM PDT by KJC1
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To: vwatto
the media’s on his side. I’m beginning to think we’re living in a Soviet-style country in which the media is VERY one sided. Not controlled by the Dems, but they might as well be. Never before in an election cycle has the media been this biased. It’s frankly, scary.

Fox News is not totally on Hussein's side. Perhaps one of their shows could interview the family ...

187 posted on 09/28/2008 10:42:35 AM PDT by af_vet_1981 (Waiting for Samson and Voting for Sarah)
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To: Diogenesis

ROFL!


188 posted on 09/28/2008 10:45:54 AM PDT by Palladin (Sarahnoia will destroy ya!)
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To: Grut

I was going to write a blog about this on the website of the newspaper I write for, but because it is the ex-husband making the claim, I have decided not to do so.

I read his statement, and while it is certainly damning, it isn’t coming from her directly, an Obama supporter.

Regardless, it is something really disgraceful of Obama if it is true. Unless she confirms it though, there isn’t much worth talking about.

He COULD provide the emails, however. If provided with all the headers etc., it would prove his claim she e-mailed him is true.


189 posted on 09/28/2008 10:46:27 AM PDT by rwfromkansas ("Carve your name on hearts, not marble." - C.H. Spurgeon)
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To: kingattax; All
Photobucket

The way to get around the drive-by's is to drive around. New Bumper Sticker. I'd love to see this coast-to-coast.

190 posted on 09/28/2008 11:05:12 AM PDT by taraytarah (If your only strategy is attacking the life choices of 17-year-old females, you got nothin'.)
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To: Tom_Busch
BRACELETGATE
191 posted on 09/28/2008 11:37:02 AM PDT by TheThinker (It is the natural tendency of government to gravitate towards tyranny.)
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To: TheThinker

BTTT


192 posted on 09/28/2008 11:50:37 AM PDT by no_go_lie
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To: paudio
"Should the US consider adopting the European style where people already know what kind of perspective they would find when they read a newspaper or a magazine?"

We have that already, but the MSM refuses to admit it. The NY Times, WaPo, LA Times, Philly Inquirer, and the rest of the "top 25" metropolitan area dailies are nearly all in the range from liberal to very liberal. Yet they pretend they are smack in the center and perfectly objective etc. It is the dishonesty and deceit that is most wearing to me. I KNOW perfectly well what they stand for but they won't admit it.

193 posted on 09/28/2008 12:12:14 PM PDT by Enchante (America: can you seriously believe that Obama & Biden know how to "run our economy"?)
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To: kabar

What kind of “set up” do you have in mind? That the right will jump on Obama for continuing to use the bracelet and Sgt. Jopek’s name in public events, and then the mother will suddenly emerge to say Obama still has her support and permission to do this?

The ex-husband has said she asked Obama to stop. I suppose then it could turn into a really ugly matter of “he said, she said” which the media would blame on those mean Republicans for bringing it all up in the first place?


194 posted on 09/28/2008 12:16:49 PM PDT by Enchante (America: can you seriously believe that Obama & Biden know how to "run our economy"?)
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To: vwatto
They were never fawning over Kerry or Gore like they are over 0. This is unprecidented.

Fawning over Obambi.

Photobucket

195 posted on 09/28/2008 12:45:42 PM PDT by rfp1234 (Phodopus campbelli: household ruler since July 2007.)
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To: Tom_Busch

BTTT


196 posted on 09/28/2008 12:56:38 PM PDT by rfp1234 (Phodopus campbelli: household ruler since July 2007.)
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To: Tom_Busch

BTTT. Obama is using the military as a campaign prop. He disrespects all Americans.


197 posted on 09/28/2008 12:59:52 PM PDT by CodeToad
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To: CodeToad
Family Told Obama NOT To Wear Soldier Son's Bracelet...

Remember the debate Friday night, when Senator Obama said, "I have a bracelet too" Good Old WHAT'S HIS NAME? He finally came up with the name of an American Hero Sergeant Ryan David Jopek . Well come to find out Sgt Jopek's mother has asked the Senator to STOP WEARING THE BRACELET because she didn't want it to become a campaign Issue. Obama ignored her request. She has turned down any subsequent interviews with the media because she just didn't want it to get turned into something that it wasn't. She had asked, actually asked Mr. Obama to not wear the bracelet any more at any of his public appearances.

I can only say that if the parents of the soldier whose bracelet John McCain is wearing had said in public that they want him to stop wearing their son's bracelet the news would have been coast to coast.

http://newsbusters.org/node/24736/print

198 posted on 09/28/2008 1:07:00 PM PDT by An American! (Proud To Be An American!)
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To: Tom_Busch

I wonder if Obama was wearing that bracelet the day he asked the Iraqi Government to delay US Troop withdrawals until after the election.


199 posted on 09/28/2008 2:12:23 PM PDT by tsowellfan (http://www.youtube.com/cafenetamerica)
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To: All; gore_sux_2000

.

NEVER FORGET

.

The REAL DEAL =

They are still soldiers

http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66978

.

NEVER FORGET

.


200 posted on 09/28/2008 2:50:38 PM PDT by ALOHA RONNIE ("ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer/Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.lzxray.com)
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