The headline of this story is that “Obama denies a rumor,” but he doesn’t really, at least from what I can tell from the reporting:

Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday batted down rumors circulating on the Internet and mentioned on some cable news shows of the existence of a video of his wife using a derogatory term for white people, and criticized a reporter for asking him about the rumor, which has not a shred of evidence to support it.

“We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said to the McClatchy reporter during a press conference aboard his campaign plane. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

Asked whether he knew it not to be true, Obama said he had answered the question.

But as far as I can see, he hadn’t, unless there were words spoken that were not reported.

Let us parse.

“We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it.”

True enough. Who can deny that there is dirt and lies circulated in emails? But that doesn’t necessarily imply that the particular topic under discussion is a lie (though it’s arguably “dirt,” regardless of its truth value).

“If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

Again, this is not a denial. It’s simply a challenge to produce proof (or at least evidence). And in the follow up, he apparently refused, once again, to deny it. It was what is called in the business a “non-denial denial.”

This is the game that Bill Clinton used to play a lot. When confronted about something, he would feign outrage, and attack the questioner, and say something like “I’m not going to even dignify that with a response.” But he wouldn’t actually deny it. The most classic case was the Juanita Broaddrick rape accusation. He never denied it. If anyone thinks that he did, provide a transcript. He sent out his lawyer to deny it, but his lawyer has no knowledge of whether it is true or not, other than hearsay from Bill. He wasn’t in the room with them.

This looks like exactly the same behavior. Of course, part of the problem is that he’s not sure what it is he should be denying, because the rumors are all over the place as to what she said or did. But it would have been better to say something like, “I’ve seen all these rumors running around on the Internet about some imminent bombshell concerning my wife, and I can tell you categorically that they are not true.”

That would be a denial. But he didn’t say that. I wonder why?

[Update a few minutes later]

I agree with the commenters that he shouldn’t be put in a position of denying non-specific rumors (as I noted in the last paragraph above). My main point, actually, is simply that the Politico headline is wrong, and misleading, because he hasn’t denied them (though he obviously hopes that we, like the reporter, thinks that he has).

Some thoughts on D-Day, from Jennifer Rubin.

One of the reasons that I do my WW II reporting parodies is to show that, over half a century after the achievements of the “greatest generation,” modern Americans and modern journalists have no concept of the losses and sacrifice of a real war, as demonstrated by all the whining about Iraq.

[Update mid afternoon]

Roger Kimball has received an early report of the progress on the beaches:

June 6, 1944. -NORMANDY- Three hundred French civilians were killed and thousands more wounded today in the first hours of America’s invasion of continental Europe. Casualties were heaviest among women and children.

Most of the French casualties were the result of the artillery fire from American ships attempting to knock out German fortifications prior to the landing of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. Reports from a makeshift hospital in the French town of St. Mere Eglise said the carnage was far worse than the French had anticipated and reaction against the American invasion was running high. “We are dying for no reason,” said a Frenchman speaking on condition of anonymity. “Americans can’t even shoot straight. I never thought I’d say this, but life was better under Adolph Hitler.”

The invasion also caused severe environmental damage. American troops, tanks, trucks and machinery destroyed miles of pristine shoreline and thousands of acres of ecologically sensitive wetlands. It was believed that the habitat of the spineless French crab was completely wiped out, threatening the species with extinction.

Of course, they bungled the occupation, too.

Mark Hemingway has an idiot’s guide to the idiocy going on in Canada at the Human Wrongs Tribunal. He also has an interview with Andrew Coyne, the MacLeans reporter who has been live blogging the proceedings.

I hope that this will finally get the attention of the media in Canada, who so far seem clueless. As Mark points out, a lot of people have been abused under this system for years, but because they were politically incorrect as victims, the press paid it no mind. With apologies to Pastor Niemoller, this may be the motto of the CBC:

First they went after the racists
And we did not speak out, because we are not racist
Then they went after the pastors preaching against homosexuality
And we did not speak out, because we are not against homosexuality
Then they went after a Christian publisher who refused to print pedophilia
And we did not speak out because we are not Christian
Then they went after the Knights of Columbus
And we not speak out because we are not Knights of Columbus
Then they went after the Western Standard
And we did not speak out, because we are not a right-wing rag
Then they went after MacLeans
And we did not speak out because we hate Mark Steyn
We don’t expect them to come after us, because we’re afraid to say anything that might offend any Muslim, and we fear the consequences of doing that even more than we fear the HRC.

In a piece on whether Obama will be Al Smith, or JFK (ummmmm…neither), John Judis (who should know better) writes:

Blacks began entering the Democratic party during the New Deal, but even as late as 1960, Richard Nixon won a third of the black vote. After Democratic support for and Republican opposition to the civil rights acts of the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of African Americans became Democrats.

Emphasis mine. I’ve discussed this before.

The ugly fact, of which ABC is either unaware, or worse, deliberately misleading their readers about, is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed without Republican support, due to the continued opposition by southern Democrats. Contra ABC’s implication, it was not the minority Republicans who filibustered it, but the majority Democrats, and the cloture vote to end debate was achieved only with the votes of many Republicans. Former Klansman Robert “Sheets” Byrd (shamefully still representing the state of West Virginia, even in his dotage and senility) was the last debater on the floor before that cloture vote (it then required 67 votes, rather than the current 60) was passed. Other stars of the filibuster were Richard Russell (D-GA), Albert Gore, Sr. (the last Vice President’s father) (D-TN), and William Fullbright (D-AR) (Bill Clinton’s mentor).

But I guess when you’re a modern liberal Democrat reporter, all that can just go down the memory hole, as long as it’s in service to a greater cause–to preserving the myth of Republican racism and opposition to civil rights, and demonstrating the continuing horror of George Bush’s and the Republican’s “theocracy.”

This is simply false history, but it’s become a matter of faith to Democrats. The Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, but they couldn’t muster the votes to pass the bill on their own. Everyone who filibustered the Civil Rights Act was a Democrat. In order to get cloture, and passage, they had to get significant Republican support. The notion that it was Republicans who were opposed to true civil rights (as opposed to the modern reverse discrimination) remains pernicious. But the story has to be told that way, otherwise the narrative of Republicans as “racists” falls apart.

[Update a few minutes later]

Historical inaccuracies aside, what is particularly annoying about Judis’ thesis is that it takes as a given that if Obama loses, it will be because of his race, and have nothing to do with his extreme lack of experience, and the fact that he’ll be the most left-wing candidate nominated since George McGovern.

Andrew Coyne continues to liveblog the witch hunt in Vancouver. I loved this bit:

We’re going through an interview Awan gave on Mike Duffy Live. He tells Duffy that this isn’t a case of free speech versus minority rights. Rather, he says, Maclean’s can go on publishing what it likes, Steyn can write whatever he likes, just so long as “the Muslim community” gets a right of reply. (I’m paraphrasing. The video of the interview is here.) So really, what they’re proposing (he explains in the interview) is an extension of free speech.

I think I see his point. Every time Maclean’s wants to publish an article some group doesn’t like, they just have to give them an equal amount of space in the magazine. Double the space, at twice the cost to Maclean’s – but zero cost to the complainants. That is “free” speech.

That is also the “Fairness Doctrine” in a nutshell. It’s why, if we have a Democrat president with a Democrat Congress, one of the first things they will attempt to do will be to resurrect that atrocity against free speech, in the hopes that it will shut down “right wing” radio.

Of course (and fortunately), the Fairness Doctrine only applies to over-the-air broadcast of television and radio (with the excuse that the spectrum is limited, and therefore ultimately owned by the public). What would probably happen if it were back in force is that Limbaugh and others would just get chased off the air waves to satellite (as has happened with over-air- television politics shows, to satellite and cable), and a lot more people would buy XM so they could continue to get a vigorous discussion of politics.

What is being proposed in Canada is to not just institute a fairness doctrine, but to extend it to print. Which, as Coyne points out, is utterly inimical to free speech, and would shut down any publication whatsoever that was “controversial.” Which means any publication that goes against the politically correct consensus of the day.

Andrew Coyne continues to liveblog the witch hunt in Vancouver. I loved this bit:

We’re going through an interview Awan gave on Mike Duffy Live. He tells Duffy that this isn’t a case of free speech versus minority rights. Rather, he says, Maclean’s can go on publishing what it likes, Steyn can write whatever he likes, just so long as “the Muslim community” gets a right of reply. (I’m paraphrasing. The video of the interview is here.) So really, what they’re proposing (he explains in the interview) is an extension of free speech.

I think I see his point. Every time Maclean’s wants to publish an article some group doesn’t like, they just have to give them an equal amount of space in the magazine. Double the space, at twice the cost to Maclean’s – but zero cost to the complainants. That is “free” speech.

That is also the “Fairness Doctrine” in a nutshell. It’s why, if we have a Democrat president with a Democrat Congress, one of the first things they will attempt to do will be to resurrect that atrocity against free speech, in the hopes that it will shut down “right wing” radio.

Of course (and fortunately), the Fairness Doctrine only applies to over-the-air broadcast of television and radio (with the excuse that the spectrum is limited, and therefore ultimately owned by the public). What would probably happen if it were back in force is that Limbaugh and others would just get chased off the air waves to satellite (as has happened with over-air- television politics shows, to satellite and cable), and a lot more people would buy XM so they could continue to get a vigorous discussion of politics.

What is being proposed in Canada is to not just institute a fairness doctrine, but to extend it to print. Which, as Coyne points out, is utterly inimical to free speech, and would shut down any publication whatsoever that was “controversial.” Which means any publication that goes against the politically correct consensus of the day.

This is appalling, but predictable:

I was astonished by their absolute lack of any background on the story they were sent to cover.

More astonished that a journalist would not know who Mark Steyn was, or that, depending on its outcome, the case they were covering could have very real ramifications on their ability to practice their trade in the future, and impact the right to free speech for all Canadians.

They knew nothing about the AHRC case against Ezra.

They did know about the Western Standard but were unaware that it was no longer being published.

They knew nothing about the Richard Warman Vs Levant, Shaidle, McMillan, Kay and Free Dominion. In fact, they had never heard of Mr. Sec. 13 Richard Warman.

They were aware that a similar charge agianst Steyn had been thrown out by the OHRC, but nothing beyond that.

I tried to provide some background on each of these cases but could see that there was not a lot of interest.

I wonder what kind of reports will be filed by each of these journalists for CBC radio? I also wonder how many other journalists sent to cover this remarkably important case, are so poorly informed.

No wonder the government and the “Human Rights” Commissions get away with so much there.