An Obama Double Standard?
To qualify an earlier post's contention that Sen. Barack Obama recieves less scrutiny from the press: it's not the level of scrutiny so much as it is the press corps' willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt when said scrutiny produces an errant or discordant thread.
Reserve the circumstances of de Vellis-gate just a bit. Let's say an employee at a major Bush vendor or a major Clinton vendor was caught engineering a stunt like this. The presumption of innocence would be gone. The press would treat the matter as it were a real scandal.
Neither campaign would get the benefit of the doubt. To Obama's credit, in this situation, he does.
In fairness to Obama (and I support someone else), he gets the benefit of the doubt because he hasn't proven himself to be dishonest. When George W. Bush opens his mouth, he has a track record of being dishonest, so you just assume he's lying.
"The press would treat the matter as it were a real scandal."
Perhaps that's the problem. At what point did the press cease to report the actual news, tending instead to attempt to create salacious stories where none exist.
It's easy to splash a sexy headline on a frontpage, underscored by rumor and innuendo...sadly, it seems, it's much more difficult to give the (usually necessary) correction such prominent placement.
You're looking at this wrongly. Sen. Obama so far has run a positive campaign. He doesn't have a history of nasty politics and everyone knows that. So it's not surprising that the media folks who know how Sen. Obama operates know full well this Youtube stuff or any other negative attack piece is just not his style of politics.
On the other hand, both Bush and Clinton camps have a long history of hard-hitting, getting in the mud style of politics. You can't deny that.
That's why Sen. Obama to some extent is given the benefit of the doubt.
I don't think it's so much that Obama has a reputation for a clean campaign as much as he has a limited national profile compared to Bushes and Clintons. Everyone knows the Clintons and Bushes. No one knows Obama except for maybe those who saw the 2004 speech and occasional coverage since. He's a relative newcomer to celebrity, and he's the favorite anti-establishment candidate right now, seeing as Edwards has been a candidate already.
I do agree that if Clinton had done this the Obama people would be screaming for blood. Obama has two strikes - David Geffen and this - one more and he loses the luster of a clean campaign, I bet. It's just too coincidental when mixed with his press secretary hire of everyone's favorite mudslinger who persisted the Geffen spat when it could have ended. One has to wonder if they keep setting him up as a good cop on purpose.
"de Vellis-gate"? Isn't that a bit much?
The fact is that de Vellis did not work for the Obama campaign, he was not hired by the campaign or any affiliates to create the ad in question, so why is there this attempt to connect Senator Obama with this person's private actions - unless its political?
His firm was hired by the campaign for previous work and his boss left the company to work for the campaign - just because the campaign says he wasn't doing their work doesn't prove that he wasn't.
From the Blue State Digital statement previously posted on this site:
"Blue State Digital is under contract with the Obama Campaign for technology pursuits including software development and hosting. Additionally, one of our founding partners is on leave from the company to work directly for the campaign at headquarters."
The guy at Blue State was either fired or resigned from his job. He even admitted that neither his employer or Obama's campaign knew of his efforts.
I still don't see where the "scandal" is beside your cheap effort to try and diminish Obama because of it?
First, Gibbs and the Obama campaign attack Hillary with GOP bogus and untrue scripting about the "Lincoln Bedroom" and now a Obama supporter spreads a internet ad that suggests that Hillary will be a fascist dictator type....Lordie, where do they get their ideas from?...Newsmax! Jeeze, circular firing squad indeed!