Democratic Candidates Debate We find some spinning but no whoppers at the first candidate debate of 2008. April 27, 2007 at 12:27 pm Summary Eight Democratic candidates debated in South Carolina. We found some minor stumbles. ◾Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, explaining his call to show compassion for Palestinians, put a spin on the remark that differs from the way it was originally reported by an Iowa newspaper. ◾Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said the Virginia Tech killer had been ruled a threat "to others" and involuntarily committed because of his mental state. Neither is true. ◾Obama boasted of taking no money from registered lobbyists but didn’t mention that he does accept money from their family members and partners and from ex-lobbyists. Analysis In the first full-blown presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, eight Democratic candidates appeared for 90 minutes on the campus of South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. Spin was neither rampant nor absent. Our findings: Obama’s Palestinian Remark Obama defended his remark that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," a statement attacked by some pro-Israel activists. His version differed in tone if not in substance from the way it was originally reported, however Moderator Brian Williams: You said recently, "No one is suffering more than the Palestinian people." Do you stand by that remark? Obama: Well, keep in mind what the remark actually, if you had the whole thing, said. And what I said is nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region. That’s somewhat different from the way Obama was quoted March 12 by reporter Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register. As reported, Obama attributed Palestinian suffering to "the stalled peace efforts with Israel" and not so narrowly to failures by Palestinian leadership only. Des Moines Register, March 12: Obama told the Muscatine-area party activists that he supports relaxing restrictions on aid to the Palestinian people. He said they have suffered the most as a result of stalled peace efforts with Israel. "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people," Obama said while on the final leg of his weekend trip to eastern Iowa. That statement would appear to lay some of the blame at the doorstep of Israel’s leadership as well. However, Beaumont also reported that Obama praised Israel as an important U.S. ally and urged the Palestinian government to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism. So far as we can tell, Beaumont was the only reporter present at the event and no full transcript exists. Clinton on Virginia Tech Hillary Clinton slipped up in her description of the Virginia Tech killings, overstating what a Virginia court had found about the shooter’s mental state in 2005. Clinton: Unfortunately, we saw the tragedy unfold at Virginia Tech. We now know that the background check system didn’t work, because certainly this shooter, as he’s called, had been involuntarily committed as a threat to himself and others. And, yet, he could walk in and buy a gun.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 17:48:05 +0000
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