Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 10 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston complains that a Los Angeles Times article's statement regarding "official and unofficial suggestions by U.S. politicians that American forces unilaterally strike Al Qaeda figures believed to be taking shelter in Pakistan's tribal lands if Musharraf's government fails to do so" doesn't single out Barack Obama by name:
Why no mention of Barack Obama and the scolding he has taken for his over-the-top rhetoric?
Does anyone doubt that if a Republican candidate had said something on the campaign trail that caused a foreign ally to react in such a visceral way that the L.A.Times would waste no time in linking that candidate's name to such a story, regardless if his rhetoric was "official" or not?
In fact, as we've noted, Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney do, in fact, endorse the substance of Obama's view on Pakistan. Why didn't Huston mention that, hmmm?
Huston goes on to assert: "But the L.A.Times knows better. They know that Obama does not represent at any time the official policy of either the Bush Administration or the United States. They know better than to classify Obama's comments as 'official and unofficial suggestions.'" How does Huston know that this is not "the official policy of either the Bush Administration or the United States"? As we've seen with Iraq, the Bush administration clearly has no problem invading a country when it serves U.S. interests.
