E.D. Hill has nothing on them!
Muslims barred from picture at Obama event
By BEN SMITH | 6/18/08 : 6/18/08 12:31 PM EST :
Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.
The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.
"This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers."
Building a human backdrop to a political candidate, a set of faces to appear on television and in photographs, is always a delicate exercise in demographics and political correctness. Advance staffers typically pick supporters out of a crowd to reflect the candidate's message.
When Obama won North Carolina amid questions about his ability to connect with white voters, for instance, he stood in front of a group of middle-aged white women waving small American flags. On the Republican side, a Hispanic New Hampshire Democrat, Roberto Fuentes, told Politico that he was recently asked, and declined, to contribute to the "diversity" of the crowd behind Sen. John McCain at a Nashua event.
But for Obama, the old-fashioned image-making contrasts with his promise to transcend iden y politics and to embrace all elements of America. The incidents in Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab and Muslim populations in the country, also raise an aspect of his campaign that sometimes rubs Muslims the wrong way: The candidate has vigorously denied a false, viral rumor that he himself is Muslim. But the denials seem to some at times to imply that there is something wrong with the faith, though Obama occasionally adds that he means no disrespect to Islam.
"I was coming to support him, and I felt like I was discriminated against by the very person who was supposed to be bringing this change, who I could really relate to," said Hebba Aref, a 25-year-old lawyer who lives in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. "The message that I thought was delivered to us was that they do not want him associated with Muslims or Muslim supporters."
In Detroit on Monday, the two different Obama volunteers — in separate incidents — made it clear that headscarves wouldn't be in the picture. The volunteers gave different explanations for excluding the hijabs, one bluntly political and the other less clear.
In Aref's case, there was no ambiguity.
That incident began when the volunteer asked Aref's friend Ali Koussan and two other friends, Aref's brother Sharif and another young lawyer, Brandon Edward Miller, whether they would like to sit behind the stage. The three young men said they would, but mentioned they were with friends.
The men said the volunteer, a twenty-something African-American woman in a green shirt, asked if their friends looked and were dressed like the young men, who were all light-skinned and wearing suits. Miller said yes, but mentioned that one of their friends was wearing a headscarf with her suit.
The volunteer "explained to me that because of the political climate and what's going on in the world and what's going on with Muslim Americans, it's not good for [Aref] to be seen on TV or associated with Obama," said Koussan, who is a law student at Wayne State University.
Both Koussan and Miller said they specifically recalled the volunteer citing the "political climate" in telling them they couldn't sit behind Obama.
"I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. Are you serious?'" Koussan recalled.
Shimaa Abdelfadeel's story was different. She'd waited on line outside the Joe Louis Arena for three hours in the sun and was walking through the giant hall when a volunteer approached two of her non-Muslim friends, a few steps ahead of her, and asked if they'd like to sit in "special seating" behind the stage, said one friend, Brittany Marino, who, like Abdelfadeel, is a recent University of Michigan graduate who works for the university.
When they said they were with Abdelfadeel, the volunteer told them their friend would have to take the headscarf off or stay out of the special section, Marino said. They declined the seats.
After recovering from the shock of the incident, Abdelfadeel went to look for the volunteer and confronted her minutes later, she said in an e-mail interview with Politico.
"We're not letting anyone with anything on their heads like baseball [caps] or scarves sit behind the stage," she paraphrased the volunteer as saying, an account Marino confirmed. "It has nothing to do with your religion!"
In most work and school settings, religious dress — such as Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, Muslim hijabs — is permitted where secular clothing like baseball caps is not.
"The scarf is not just something she can take off — it's part of her iden y," said Marino.
Photographs of the event also show men with hats in the section behind Obama and former Vice President Al Gore, though not directly behind the candidate.
Abdelfadeel, like Aref, felt "disappointed, angry and let-down," she later wrote.
She was "let-down that the Obama campaign continously perpetuates this at ude towards Muslims and Arabs — as if being merely associated [with] one is a sin."
The two women's friends who witnessed the incidents were disappointed too. Aref's friend Miller said he was "shocked" by the contrast between Obama's message and their experience.
"He was the one candidate who you would expect to stand up for something like that — and behind the scenes you have something completely contrary to what he was running on," said Koussan, Aref's other friend.
Aref and her friends complained to the campaign, and after those complaints and an inquiry from Politico, Obama's director of advance, Emmett S. Beliveau, called her to apologize.
An Obama aide also noted that the campaign has no policy against the candidate's appearing with women in headscarves: The next morning at Wayne State University, Obama posed for a picture with a student wearing a hijab.
Photographs from a Seattle rally earlier this year also clearly show a couple in Muslim clothes behind the candidate.
The administrator of the "Muslims4Obama" group on Obama's website, which is not a formal part of the campaign, also said she had "not heard anything regarding Muslim supporters being steered away from sitting behind Sen. Obama at the event," and noted that he had Muslim supporters present at events in Minnesota, including one at which he stood with a Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison.
Aref said she was glad Obama had apologized, but she was not entirely satisfied.
"I think this is a much bigger deal than maybe they're perceiving it as," she said, noting that Obama had placed a personal call to a television reporter he'd dismissively called "Sweetie."
"An apology from him personally would be better," she said, then reconsidered. "If they are true to their word, I think it would suffice to have an invitation to their next rally and have seats behind him and show up on TV."
"Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html
yes they are. i don't support obamessiah, but this story really is a non issue. every candidacy has their idiots. it just so happens obamessiah's camp made the headlines first. did you hear him on kimmel call hawaiian basketball teams all short because of their asian heritage. bad future leader, please God help us, of the about-to-be-not-so-free world.
"Arabs for McCain" is the new movement.
Puh-lease.
Given the hysterical "ohnoes! hesamuslim!" from the right, can you really blame the campaign staff from being a *bit* sensitive to the image?
Stupid thing to do on the part of the particular staffer in question, but should this really affect any one person's vote, other than a Muslim who might be offended?
Is this really the best attack the right can muster against this guy? Is this the "A" game?
To me this seems to be on par with the performance of the Lakers in the last game of the finals...
You guys can do better.
Obama is blaming the campaign staff, so yeah, they really can be blamed
Trivializing Muslims, commendable...Stupid thing to do on the part of the particular staffer in question, but should this really affect any one person's vote, other than a Muslim who might be offended?
The famous "blame the other guy for my guys mistake, I knew it would take no more that a few posts' to get there.Is this really the best attack the right can muster against this guy? Is this the "A" game?
More on par with Hill's ignorant "terrorist fist jab" comment. (Which IIRC, created quite a storm)To me this seems to be on par with the performance of the Lakers in the last game of the finals...
You guys can do better.
Geeez, this is about as cynical and intellectually dishonest as it gets.
I shake my anti-stupid stick at you. "Bah".
Don't expect anyfurther comment on this from me, until you can find your sense of ethics.
/thread
I post to give my opinion, obviously interaction is voluntary and never expected.
Oh, and regarding your charges of cynicism and i.d., take heart in the fact that myopia is curable (but you have to want to be cured).
And I am expecting a reply!
Damn it.
Obama has got to get a freakin hold on his people.
Every time one of his people do something stupid or bust out another racist comment, hes dropping the I have no control over these people comment.
LIke McCain has also you mean? like this is going to happen but I do agree that it must be kept to a minimum.
His supporters put him in a difficult position, now the offended parties are asking for a prominent place, standing behind him on the dais, at a future Obama speaking engagement.
University of Michigan worker among two Muslim women denied seats behind Obama at rally
Posted by The Associated Press June 19, 2008 08:32AM
A young Muslim woman said she and another woman were refused seats directly behind Barack Obama -- and in front of TV cameras -- at a Detroit rally because they wear head scarfs.
Hebba Aref said Wednesday that she and Shimaa Abdelfadeel, who works at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, were among 20,000 supporters who gathered to see the Democratic presidential hopeful on Monday at the Joe
Louis Arena when the groups they were with were separately invited by Obama campaign volunteers to sit behind the podium.
But, Aref said, the volunteers told members of both parties in separate discussions that women wearing hijabs, the traditional Muslim head scarves, weren't included in the invitation and couldn't sit behind the podium.
Aref, a 25-year-old lawyer, said a member of her group was told by a volunteer that she could not invite Aref because of "a sensitive political climate."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton issued a statement saying such actions are "not the policy of the campaign."
"It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run. We sincerely apologize for this behavior," the statement read.
Aref said she replied by thanking Burton, but requested Obama apologize directly to her and Abdelfadeel, and that they receive invitations to sit behind him at a future campaign event. Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the campaign has apologized.
"He needs to take the matter seriously and send a strong message against any kind of discrimination," Aref said.
Abdelfadeel, who works in the Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs Office at U-M, could not be reached for comment.
Presidential campaigns routinely invite audience members they believe will enhance the image their candidate wants to convey on TV to stand behind the candidate at rallies.
Aref, who was born in the United States to Egyptian immigrants, said she had defended Obama during the primaries against a constant drumbeat of rumors that he was Muslim. Obama is a Christian.
Obama also has been careful in denouncing the links, noting that some rumors about him also have been insulting to Muslims.
"I don't want to be called something I'm not, but I felt like ... everyone was treating this accusation of being Muslim as though it were some sort of crime or sin," Aref said.
She was grateful that the group she was with at the rally, which included her brother, Sharif, as well as non-Muslim colleagues of his, declined the invitation to take seats behind Obama after she was refused.
Still, she said, it was difficult to hear Obama's message of unity among races.
"As he's saying it, I'm thinking, 'Well, wait a minute, I was obviously ... profiled and discriminated against an hour ago."'
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2...an_worker.html
"Obama has got to get a freakin hold on his people."
The 2000/2004 Repug campaigns were famous for their "freakin holds" on dubya's people, aka, "staying on message". But you were OK with that.
The Congressional Repugs were geneous mob, still are, a maverick-free zone, with assholes like Delay "Hammer"ing the out of/freakin-holding any Repug who ever dared think or vote against the Repug party line. But you were OK with that kind of party discipline, but not with Obama's increasing campaign discipline?
Last edited by boutons_; 06-19-2008 at 06:34 PM.
it wasn't the campaign, it was individual campaign volunteers.
Obama’s Campaign Tightens Control of Image and Access
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/us...9campaign.html
For those that don't have an account to access to NYTimes articles;
Obama’s Campaign Tightens Control of Image and Access
At a rally for Senator Barack Obama in Detroit on Monday, two Muslim women said they were prohibited from sitting behind the candidate because they were wearing head scarves and campaign volunteers did not want them to appear with him in news photographs or live television coverage.
The Obama campaign said it quickly called the women to apologize after learning of the incident. “It doesn’t reflect the orientation of the campaign,” said Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “I do not believe that mistake will be made again.”
But the incident, first reported Wednesday by Politico.com, pointed to pitfalls the campaign faces as it moves into the general election and seeks to maintain control of Mr. Obama’s image by tightly managing his public appearances.
The Obama campaign is vigilantly fighting erroneous information that has spread on the Internet that he is Muslim — he is, in fact, Christian — and emphasizing his patriotism and American story, with flags in abundance. In Washington on Wednesday, he invited photographers to his meeting with new members of his national security team and retired military officers supporting his candidacy.
The campaign on Monday barred cameras from a large gathering of African-American civic leaders Mr. Obama attended. <whatever happened to Freedom of the Press, what do they have to hide?> It recently refused to provide names of religious figures with whom Mr. Obama met in Chicago and directed some of them to avoid reporters by using a special exit. And on Wednesday, the campaign orchestrated Mic e Obama’s appearance on the friendly set of “The View” and a flattering spread in the pages of Us Weekly.
“One of the challenges that we are confronting very directly is dealing with the rumors and the e-mails, the inaccurate information about Senator Obama and Mic e Obama,” Ms. Dunn said, “and we’re going to deal with that very aggressively through a number of mediums.”
While the strategy has won compliments from political professionals of both parties, who say Mr. Obama’s campaign is exhibiting a high level of discipline, it has also created some early turbulence for a candidate who has run on promises of openness and cultivated a grass-roots following and a cottage industry of homemade campaign videos, memorabilia and street murals.
Mr. Obama’s campaign is making a transition typical of any newly minted presidential nominee preparing for a general election race. It mirrors the stagecraft once so successfully practiced by the campaigns of President Bush to the envy — and, sometimes, anger — of Democrats.
“This guy is one of two people who can be president of the United States,” said Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist for President Bush in his 2000 and 2004 campaigns. “He’s not going door-to door-in Iowa anymore, and I think people expect things to be different when you’re the nominee.”
“The same with John McCain — he’s not going to be able to spend as much time in living rooms,” Mr. Stevens said. “It’s just the nature of the game changing.”
But Mr. McCain’s campaign has been faulted for being too lax in protecting his image, facing specific criticism for his prime-time speech before a relatively small crowd and an odd green backdrop the night Mr. Obama claimed his party’s nomination. Yet while Mr. McCain’s aides have had their share of skirmishes with the press, they still enjoy a reputation for giving reporters traveling with him an unusual amount of access.
Strategists for Mr. Obama, the country’s first black nominee, have made it clear that they believe they need to take extra steps to control his image and protect against attack. But such efforts at times appear to conflict with the candidate’s stated desire to be unusually transparent and open, and they have already occasionally put him at loggerheads with news organizations pushing for greater access to him now that he is the presumptive nominee.
In spirited discussions with reporters barred from Monday’s meeting with African-American civic leaders, aides said that no cameras were allowed because the participants wanted the meeting to be private, even though it was announced on the daily hotel roster of events. Later, other aides said the lighting was not properly set up for television quality <lighting affects sound recordings?>.
When Mr. Obama met with religious leaders last week, his campaign kept out photographers and reporters and refused to share a full list of participants.
Professor Douglas W. Kmiec, a conservative cons utional scholar at Pepperdine Law School, said Mr. Obama told him and others in attendance that he was keeping the meeting private so everyone could speak without fear of public judgment.
“He said, ‘I want the terms and conditions of the meeting to be such that anybody feels free to ask me anything in as challenging a way as they’d wish to,’ ” Mr. Kmiec said, adding that guests who wanted to avoid reporters were directed to a special exit.
Mr. Obama’s aides say his campaign has stayed true to his promise of transparency. They point to his decision to open fund-raisers to reporters, the first candidate this year to do so. But Mr. Obama is taking a more strategic approach to granting interviews. This week, he has focused on talking about the economy with reporters from The Wall Street Journal and Fortune.
Tensions between Mr. Obama’s campaign and the news media broke into full view when aides announced two weeks ago that he was flying to Chicago but then sent his plane — and traveling press corps — there while he stayed in Washington to meet with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. <suckers>
The bureau chiefs of the major television news networks and The Associated Press wrote Mr. Obama’s top aides a stern letter on June 6, saying, “There are many ways in a campaign to control your message and conduct private meetings that do not involve deceiving the press corps.” The letter continued, “Going forward, we know from experience that covering a presidential campaign requires that some representatives of the press corps be with, or near, the senator at all times as part of the ‘security package,’ just as the White House press corps is with the president.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign has not indicated that it is ready to go quite so far.
“The press corps wouldn’t be doing its job it if weren’t demanding more access than we’re willing to give,” Ms. Dunn said. “We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t occasionally irritate the press.”
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ccd_1213876184
It's amazing, certain individuals on this board called out W. for far less as far as press maneuvering, scream about individual rights being trampled on under the guise of fighting terrorism, but then you have Camp Obama coming along making the producers of Wag the Dog blush and there's not a single bit of criticism from them about it.The campaign on Monday barred cameras from a large gathering of African-American civic leaders Mr. Obama attended. <whatever happened to Freedom of the Press, what do they have to hide?> It recently refused to provide names of religious figures with whom Mr. Obama met in Chicago and directed some of them to avoid reporters by using a special exit. And on Wednesday, the campaign orchestrated Mic e Obama’s appearance on the friendly set of “The View” and a flattering spread in the pages of Us Weekly.
Ironic...
Bad judgement indeed.
"there's not a single bit of criticism from them about it."
When Obama starts creating National Energy Policy in secret ( head's 2001 policy and who from engery industries attended the meeting is still secret. The policy was: Invade Iraq to grab the oil.), then I'll get worried.
Having a closed meeting between private citizens is totally unharmful. Having the press around shuts up everyone, or makes they say false . I guess you wanted Faux News in there to ambush the meeting the way O'Reilly sent his goon to ambush Moyers?
Running the WH in hermetic secrecy, destroying millions of WH emails, leaking NIE to expose Plame, re-classifiying tons of do ents like the Repugs have done is fine with Aggie, who can't seem to distinguish between how a president runs his Exec and how private citizen runs his presidential campaign.
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