Nico Pitney-Huffington Post

State Senator Kevin Bryant Posts Osama-Obama Photo

July 21, 2008 03:23 PM

South Carolina State Senator Kevin Bryant has removed a classy photo from his website showing Osama Bin Laden next to Barack
Obama with text claiming the difference between them is "just a little B.S."

Update: Interview with Bryant added below.

The photo was highlighted by Wonkette and The Hill, among other sites, and when I tried to access the blog post in question at 3PM ET, it had been removed from Bryant's website.

Wonkette captured a screen shot:

Bryant appears to have been a longtime McCain supporter, having posted a Draft McCain press release all the way back in August 2006.

UPDATE: The blog post now appears to be available again.

UPDATE II: I just got ahold of State Senator Bryant over the phone, and asked him whether he thought the image was appropriate.

Story continues below

"It was meant tongue in cheek," he said, adding, "I've got some questions about Senator Obama's ties to -- such as his comment that we should negotiate with Iran. Iran's a country that would like to destroy Israel, that bothers me. But is this picture appropriate? I don't know." He let out a loud laugh. "It's gotten a lot more attention than I would have expected."

Does he think Obama is actually has terrorist ties? "I don't think he's tied to terrorists, no. I do think he's probably more sympathetic to nations that allow terrorism than I would prefer. And that's why I posted it. Am I saying that him and Osama work together? No, I'm not saying that at all."

And what religion does Bryant think Obama practices? "That's a good question. I don't know."

Bryant says he's supporting John McCain for president, and that he is trying to figure out how to remove the Osama-Obama image from his website. "I may put it back up, I may not," he said. "I just thought I'd take it down and think about it."

He added: "You know, blogs are for satire and whatnot and, um, that's why it's up. It's similar to the New Yorker picture. Maybe that's why this has gotten so much attention, because of that thing that came out a couple days ago."

UPDATE III: South Carolina's Senate Democrats just sent out a release hammering Bryant:

Senate Democrats Call Bryant's Actions Classless

Columbia, SC - The South Carolina Senate Democratic Caucus today called state Senator Kevin Bryant's posting of a photo of Osama Bin Laden next to presidential candidate Barack Obama classless. The photo, with a caption claiming the difference between them is "just a little B.S.", has been removed from Bryant's official website.

Senate Democratic Caucus Political Director Phil Bailey issued the following statement:

"Senator Bryant's posting of this offensive photo is classless and it has no place in politics. Bryant should be more concerned about serving his constituents, who pay his salary, than posting garbage like this on his website. The voters of Anderson County deserve a state Senator with better judgment."

E. D. Hill has company

When Fox News anchor E. D. Hill suggested that Barack and Michelle Obama may have engaged in a "terrorist fist jab" at a recent campaign event, condemnation (and mockery) of Hill's comments was swift, and forced her to offer an on-air quasi-apology.

While Hill's apology was unusual (though not unprecedented -- just a few weeks ago, a Fox analyst apologized for joking about assassinating Obama), her original comments were sadly typical of the media's treatment of Obama. Since he began running for president, news reports have relentlessly suggested that Obama is different; that he isn't like you; that he isn't on your side.

Sometimes, like Hill's "terrorist fist jab" comment, those suggestions have been obvious, and clearly offensive. Other times, they have been comparatively subtle and seemingly pointless -- Chris Matthews' deep concern with Barack Obama's decision to order orange juice in a diner and what it says about his ability to connect with "regular people," for example. But they have two things in common: They portray Obama as weird -- un-American, even -- and they do so based on little more than the fevered imaginations of some journalists and the vicious lies of right-wing partisans.

Rush Limbaugh says Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden are "on the same page." Other conservative commentators have suggested an affinity between Obama and Hamas -- despite Obama's denunciations of the organization, and its description of Obama's policy positions as "hostile to us." Conservative columnist Mark Steyn has described Michelle Obama as "Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing."

Michael Savage claims to "doubt" that Obama "would take our side" after a terrorist attack, adding that Obama would "march thousands of us into the hands of the enemy in order to gain what they would think would be a long-term peace. I think that they would gladly take the guns of the American military and turn them first on the American patriot, rather than turning the guns of the American patriot on the enemy within." Savage also asks, "Why are there no queries being provoked about Saddam Hussein -- I mean, Barack Hussein Obama?" Tucker Carlson has compared Obama's campaign to the Khmer Rouge, the brutal Cambodian regime that led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of that nation's people.

Washington Post reporter Jonathan Weisman responded to a question referencing the possibility of "Osama blowing up the Sears Tower" by writing, "How about Obama blowing up the Sears Tower! I never liked that building anyway." Weisman did add, "Just kidding, folks." Another washingtonpost.com reader later followed up: "Um, did you really just joke about Obama blowing up the Sears Tower, or were you thinking Osama, but wrote Obama? Either way, not funny."

Weisman wasn't the first reporter to use the "just kidding" defense after inappropriately and baselessly linking Obama to a controversial figure. CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield (now with CBS) compared Obama's tendency to wear shirts with open collars to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's preferred style of dress. When criticized by, among others, Columbia Journalism Review, Greenfield claimed he had been kidding, that he meant the commentary as a "patently absurd parody of muddled political thinking" and lashed out at his critics.

But humor (if you can call it that) doesn't excuse making comments like this -- indeed, it makes it more likely that the public will remember and internalize the comparisons, and that the caricatures will take hold.

Media figures also often portray Obama as un-American or unpatriotic. Dick Morris says that "the question that plagues Obama is ... Is he pro-American?" and that the presidential election hinges on whether "we believe" Obama is "sort of a sleeper agent who really doesn't believe in our system." Investor's Business Daily asks, "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?" On Fox & Friends, host Steve Doocy says Obama has "patriotism problems." MSNBC's Chris Matthews thinks "it's a hard thing for someone like Barack Obama" to express a "gut sense of Americanism" and describes Obama as "almost Third World in his sort of presentation." Jonah Goldberg falsely claims Obama "dodg[es] the word and concept of patriotism." And countless news reports -- not just in the right-wing media -- have obsessed over the fact that Obama often does not wear a flag pin (Fox News' Sean Hannity particularly loves this line of attack -- despite the fact that Hannity himself often appears on television without such a pin) or have passed along ridiculous claims about Obama and the Pledge of Allegiance, as CBS News and The Washington Post (among others) have done.

Countless news reports have directly suggested Obama is secretly a Muslim, while others uncritically report the allegation without bothering to make clear that it is false. As is often the case, Michael Savage takes things a bit further, falsely claiming that "we have an unknown stealth candidate who went to a madrassas in Indonesia and, in fact, was a Muslim," and stating, "We have a right to know if he's a so-called friendly Muslim or one who aspires to more radical teaching."

Gratuitously invoking Obama's middle name -- Hussein -- is a favorite tactic used by conservative media figures such as Ann Coulter to associate Obama with Saddam Hussein. (Coulter claims that she does it not out of malice but "because I think it's funny.") For some, Obama's actual name isn't enough: Right-wing radio host Bill Cunningham referred to Obama as "Barack Mohammed Hussein Obama." (Just a few weeks later, Cunningham was chosen to warm up the crowd at one of Sen. John McCain's campaign rallies.)

MSNBC's Matthews has explained the problem with these gratuitous references to Obama's name:

[E]ven that little seemingly neutral information gets into some older people's heads, and they go, "We got a problem here."

[...]

[O]lder people -- and I can tell stories in the millions about politicians playing to older voters. They play on the past. They play on fear. They play on confusion. They play on suggestion. You know how it's done with older voters.

But Matthews himself was the first person -- media figure or political operative -- to invoke Obama's middle name in a political context in any news report available in Nexis. Way back in November of 2006, Matthews noted: "You know, it's interesting that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. That will be interesting down the road, won't it?" And now Matthews says that the mention of Obama's middle name plays on "fear" and "confusion" and "suggestion" with "older voters." So why did he introduce the name into the national conversation?

Matthews frequently claims that Obama is not a "regular" person -- and that his supporters aren't "regular people," either, as I explained last week:

Matthews' election-night portrayal of Obama as out of touch with "most Americans" was striking in its intensity, but it was not a new theme. MSNBC personnel, particularly Matthews, have been trying out this anti-Obama theme for months. Matthews has attacked Obama for shooting pool ("[I]t's not what most people play. People with money play pool these days.") and obsessed over what he claims is Obama's inability to connect with "regular people" in "a dinette." And Matthews and David Shuster mocked Obama for the grievous sin of ordering orange juice in a diner.

Matthews has said of Obama, "[T]his gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder." On another occasion, Matthews suggested that Obama's lack of bowling prowess "tells you something about the Democratic Party." Matthews has contrasted "regular people" with "people who come from the African-American community." He has suggested Obama should pick a Jewish running mate because he "need[s] some ethnic balance." Matthews has said Obama "seems a little foreign" and that he and Jeremiah Wright are "different faces of the same guy."

Matthews' portrayal of Obama as unlike "regular people" is catching on. The New York Times' David Brooks recently said Obama wouldn't seem to "fit in naturally" at an Applebee's salad bar. (Turns out that, by Brooks' logic, it is Brooks himself who is out of touch with "regular people"; Applebee's doesn't have a salad bar.) And on MSNBC on Tuesday, columnist Margaret Carlson said of Obama: "Don't you want to say to him, 'Eat the taco. A funnel cake won't kill you.' " Carlson then asserted that Obama needs to get "a little bit more down with the people."

Other examples of the media portraying Obama as strange or dangerous abound. Coulter suggests Obama is "a Manchurian candidate." Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan compares Obama's speeches to Hitler's. Slate.com teases an article with the line "Why Obama is Like a Serial Killer." Tucker Carlson says Obama "sounds like a pothead to me" and "seems like kind of a wuss," while MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough suggests Obama is not a "real man."

And the media don't stop at portraying Obama as abnormal; his supporters have received similar treatment. Brooks, Time's Joe Klein, ABC's Jake Tapper, and other media figures have called Obama supporters "creepy" and "cult-like" and compared them to followers of Charles Manson.

Obviously there is a difference between calling Barack Obama a terrorist or suggesting he might not "take our side" in the event of a terrorist attack and saying his lack of bowling prowess prevents him from understanding and connecting with "regular people." But both storylines portray Obama as out of the mainstream; they each prime audiences to be more receptive to the other (and the more extreme comments coming from the likes of Michael Savage and Fox News have the pernicious effect of making Chris Matthews' absurd claims about Obama and "regular people" seem reasonable by comparison) -- and neither has any basis in reality. After all, polls show Obama beating McCain, so he must not be doing too badly among "regular people."

Yesterday, Barack Obama's campaign unveiled a website dedicated to rebutting false rumors. On MSNBC Live, Andrea Mitchell and Time's Jay Carney discussed the need for the new site:

MITCHELL: [Obama] was being asked by reporters about things that are completely unprovable, and the way this stuff circulates, it's so viral that a reporter asks him a question, it gets picked up, and then that ratifies the rumor, which we're not even going to be talking about because, you know, there's no proof about a lot of this stuff. So --

CARNEY: You know, the one, Andrea -- there's one in particular that they talk about where Michelle is alleged in a rumor to have referred to white Americans as whitey in a speech at, of course, the Trinity church, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church. There's no evidence at all that this is true. This rumor started circulating among conservative bloggers and then was picked up and just repeated as a rumor by Rush Limbaugh, of course, the widely listened-to conservative talk radio host. Now over -- driving over to the studio just half an hour ago I heard Rush Limbaugh's show, and he's talking about this non-stop, talking about how it's not -- you know, he's not to blame, he was just reporting a rumor. But of course, he spent half --

MITCHELL: But reporting a rumor, Jay --

CARNEY: But he spent half an hour at least when I was listening to him re-circulating the very rumor without shooting it down, so that's the effect of these things.

MITCHELL: Well, let's put it to rest right now. This didn't happen. It hasn't happened, it's not gonna happen. But the Obama campaign has felt concerned enough clearly about all of this --

CARNEY: Exactly.

MITCHELL: -- and our own NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows this resistance to him by, you know, white men, with McCain having a 20-point lead in -- among white men and still problems with suburban women, which is kind of more understandable coming out of a primary election between him and Hillary Clinton. This is something he's going to have to fix.

CARNEY: Right. It's out there and they just have to -- the goal of circulating these rumors from Obama opponents is basically to create an atmosphere of doubt about the candidate -- about his patriotism, about his background, his religion.

Journalists like Andrea Mitchell and Jay Carney understand that the repetition of baseless rumors "ratifies the rumors," as Mitchell put it. And they understand the intent behind the rumors -- creating "an atmosphere of doubt about the candidate," as Carney said.

But journalists need to do more than understand the intent and effect of false rumors pushed by the right. They need to understand how their own reporting and commentary have similar effects, regardless of their intent. They need to understand that they have a responsibility that goes beyond being careful not to spread (intentionally or otherwise) these bogus right-wing themes; they also have a responsibility to aggressively report the truth. There is a broad smear campaign being waged against Barack Obama, and it is long past time for the media to expose and debunk those smears, not play into them.

— J.F.

Army Shows Its Colors

The Army's public affairs office publishes a daily roundup of Army-related news called "Stand To" -- named for the set of procedures combat units do just prior to dawn, when they go to full alert for a possible enemy attack. The daily wrapup contains links to mainstream media articles, Army press releases, foreign media stories and blogs. It's similar to the Defense Department's Early Bird -- but much briefer, and obviously more focused on the Army.

Tuesday's edition contained an entry under "WHAT'S BEING SAID IN BLOGS" that struck me as unusual -- both for its headline and its patent political bias:

Obama: World peace thru surrender (KDIHH)

The link goes to a milblog called "Knee Deep in the Hooah." The author is a former Army officer whose son is serving in Iraq now. After citing a column on some curious Pentagon planning for an Obama administration, he goes on to write:

Roger that Redleg six, throwing away all ammo now and preparing to surrender ... Redleg five, out.

After all, what better time to surrender than when we are winning? The article cited above also includes a Youtube link so that you can see the end for yourself in the end makers own words. Sure. This is all old news for those of us who care. But it still ticks me off anyway. So I thought to myself,"Why not share the wealth?" Now I can be ticked off in good company. Enjoy.

Mr.Hooah!, out.

Seriously? Have any of these people actually read the Obama defense policy papers or speeches -- or are they simply going on what they hear on Fox News and the Limbaugh network?

And more to the point, why is the Army's official in-house public affairs shop linking to this kind of stuff? Just a few weeks ago, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told all hands to stay out of politics: "As the nation prepares to elect a new president, we would all do well to remember the promises we made: to obey civilian authority, to support and defend the Constitution and to do our duty at all times.... Keeping our politics private is a good first step." He added: "The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia."

Unfortunately, the message didn't get to through to the Army.

Let's be clear: It is okay for the services to have a message. Both the Early Bird and Stand To speak for the Pentagon and the Army as institutions, and that's okay. They generally support the troops, the military, the chain of command, and the current endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing wrong with that.

And I have no objections to what Mr. Hooah wrote, besides the fact that I think it's factually wrong. He has his opinion; I have mine.

But the Stand To page is different -- and Tuesday's edition crosses the line. This isn't some citizen's blog or website. It's the in-house public affairs digest of the United States Army. It should not be amplifying partisan political attacks, nor should it be airing them at all. This appears like yet another example of the unusually cozy relationship which has developed over the last generation or so between the military and the right wing of American politics -- an unhealthy development, to say the least.

Last time I checked, soldiers and civilian officials didn't swear an oath to either political party or to their current president. Rather, they swear their fidelity to the Constitution, and the ideals it embodies, including the subordination of the military to civil authority. Adm. Mullen is right: As we enter a contentious election year, where issues of national security are likely to dominate the debate, the military needs to stay on the sidelines.

Commentary by Albert R. Hunt

(Corrects movie title in first paragraph.)

June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Last weekend, in a family outing, we went to see the new movie, ``Sex and the City.'' As I cringed over what seemed a celebration of banal excess, my 19-year-old daughter was beaming, loving it.

Women, given opportunities, easily are the equal of men in medicine, law, finance, tennis, even math. There are, however, some profound gender differences in tastes and perspectives as Lauren showed me anew.

So, knowing this will anger some woman readers, here goes: Hillary Clinton didn't lose the Democratic presidential nomination because she is a woman, and gender no longer is a big deal in American elections.

There are two basic reasons the most formidable front-runner in contemporary presidential politics failed: Barack Obama is a sensational candidate who assembled a campaign team, which out- thought and out-strategized Clinton at every turn; and Hillary Clinton, in the most important venture of her life, picked the wrong people and adopted the wrong strategy.

Unwilling to face this painful reality, some Clintonistas persist in the whiny complaint that it was all about sexism.

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a national ticket in 1984, claimed Obama won only because he is an African-American and Hillary lost because of ``latent sexism.'' Ferraro is debasing her legacy.

`Deeply Offensive'

Clinton herself complained of the ``deeply offensive'' sexual discrimination she faced particularly in the media; some supporters have asked Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press to study the unfair media treatment of the New York senator.

To be sure, some of the cable-television news bloviators were egregiously unfair to Hillary Clinton; so was there some egregiously unfair coverage of Barack Obama. There is little indication they influenced the electorate.

The request to the Shorenstein Center is unnecessary; already in collaboration with the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Shorenstein Center conducted a comprehensive study of media coverage in their important first two months of this year's campaign.

The results, it concluded, ``belie the idea that Obama enjoyed the most positive coverage.'' Actually, he and Clinton received almost identical and largely favorable coverage.

Self-Inflicted

Many of the negative stories reflect the animosities, some of it irrational, that much of the media harbor about the Clintons, or it was self-inflicted. The Clinton campaign was marked by arrogance predicated upon an entitlement and a candidate who took much too long to open up and display her human dimensions, even vulnerabilities. When she belatedly did -- the tears in New Hampshire -- she was rewarded, not admonished, by voters.

Moreover, look at some of Obama's key supporters: prominent Democratic governors, Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas; congresswomen like Anna Eshoo of California or Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar. Do Geraldine Ferraro or Gloria Steinem believe they were part of an anti-feminist jihad?

This argument is ``nonsense,'' notes Abner Mikva, an Obama supporter, former federal judge and White House counsel to President Bill Clinton: ``Most of the people around Barack are real feminists with lots of strong women, starting with Michelle.''

Seminal Moment

In reality women in high political office is no longer controversial, witness governors like Sebelius, one of the real stars of the Democratic Party. When Nancy Pelosi became House speaker a year and a half ago, it was a seminal moment. The gender of the next woman speaker will be greeted routinely.

The hope a few decades ago that women would hold political office commensurate to their percentage of population -- more than half -- hasn't materialized.

Of the 50 governors only eight are women, only 16 of the 100 U.S. senators and 75 of the 435 House members are women. The numbers are up considerably from the previous generation though nothing like parity. (Republicans, in particular, do poorly: Only five of the 16 U.S. senators and three of the eight governors are Republicans. Twenty-one, or fewer than 30 percent, of the House members are Republicans.)

There's a reason for this overall lag, according to a study by two political scientists, Jennifer Lawless of Brown University and Richard Fox of Loyola Marymount University.

Ambition Gap

``There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition,'' they conclude. ``Men tend to have it and women don't.''

That reflects societal inequities. Women still shoulder a hugely disproportionate share of child-rearing, don't have as developed networks for mentoring and advancement, and in the early stages of their careers women often are reviled for an aggressiveness that is rewarded in men.

Still, when these obstacles are surmounted, the Lawless-Fox analysis finds ``women perform as well as men when they do run for office. In terms of fundraising and vote totals, the consensus among researchers is the complete absence of overt gender bias.''

That view was reinforced by the Clinton campaign. She raised almost $200 million more than any other candidate in either party except for Obama, a cash phenomenon. And she got almost as many popular votes.

Eloquent Concession

Her near success, as Pelosi has noted, makes it easier for future women candidates. In her concession speech Saturday, Senator Clinton herself noted that before this campaign people asked: ``Could a woman really serve as Commander-in-Chief? Well, I think we answered that one.'' The speech was forceful, even eloquent.

That was welcome to Democrats following her graceless performance last Tuesday night, after Obama clinched the nomination. President George W. Bush congratulated Obama before Clinton did.

Then there were the heavy-handed efforts of her backers, like the businessman Bob Johnson and the lobbyist Lanny Davis, to pressure Obama to put her on the ticket.

She won't be Obama's running mate. That is because it would create difficult politics and dreadful governance, not because of her gender.

(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net