Obama handled the Novak "story" flawlessly

I've seen some posts here on DU criticizing the way Obama responded to Novak. I think he handled this quite well and here is my reasoning.

1) There is no dirt on Obama. Hillary knows it, Obama knows it, Bob Novak knows it.

2) Bob Novak has no credibility

3) The mainstream media could care less about 1 and 2

Had Obama chosen to respond by insulting Novak's credibility or refused to dignify Novak with a serious response, the MSM would've taken that soundbyte and run it for days on end with the headline "What does Obama have to hide?".

Personally I'd love to tell Bob Novak that he has no credibility and that he's lowlife scum. But I'm not running for President. Obama did exactly what he needed to do to avoid the media manufacturing speculation about a non-existent scandal. He told them to either put up or shut up.

he should not have accused Hillary Clinton of giving the information to Novak. How in the hell you can get he handled it flawlessly is behind me, but then Obama supporters see stuff that is not there.

you have no idea if a "well known dem" gave Novak anything. You're relying on a rightwing liar's story and accepting it's premise.

Novak's a pro. Obama's a rookie. And it showed.

Hillary could dismiss Novak all she wants, the media will not follow. On Monday Tweety was going on and on about how Novak always has good sources.

Obama said put up or shut up. The media shut up and the story isn't in the headlines today.

and the venom with which Obama's opponents here disagree with you says more about their regrets that the story never went anywhere than anything else.

Most voters don't consider Bob Novak to be a hack without an ounce of credibility because they don't even know who he is. They see him and assume that he must be credible because he's on television.

The Swift Boaters had about as much credibility as Bob Novak and look where Kerry wound up because he initially dismissed them. You don't dismiss charges just because the sources don't have credibility. You have to assume that the average voter is too uninformed to realize that the sources don't have credibility. As H.L. Mencken said Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

:rofl:

Delusions are nice, aren't they? :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Seems to me he's shown he's stronger on LGBT issues during this McClurkin "controversy" than any other candidate. I would think the LGBT community would be rallying behind him. I did see evidence of that in the open letter to his campaign from leaders in the community.
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The McClurkin controversy has inspired me to make a donation to the Obama campaign.

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I think his heart is in the right place. It's good to practice a politics of inclusion, not exclusion. Also, regarding this current controversy, in my opinion he has handled it well.

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You get the point.

Are these comments from the MSM?

I've seen very little agreement on much of anything on this board.

He gave credibility to Novak when he should have taken him out.

and outted a CIA agent, he lost all credibility anywhere.

he's still a credible source for the Obama campaign.

Because if you read the OP that is not what I stated.

either. He's scraping the mud to keep his name in the news now.

But the punditry on CNN, Faux, and MSNBC still take him seriously.

Novak played him like a flounder.

:rofl:

:rofl:

You can ignore me or answer the question.

Being on the fence between O and Clinton, I do listen to both what they are each saying and how they are saying it. In the first release O made he was telling me to believe no-whack when he said Clinton was playing dirty and believe Clinton is being a hypocrit within a context of her statements of no interparty mud slinging. But the no-whack article gave me, a skeptical reader, no indication it was doing anything other than spreading rumors of rumors, and O was telling me to believe it so I would see less in Clinton. Then O demanded that Clinton buy into this mudslinging and respond. This was true hypocricy slamming a rumor of hypocricy. He lost points here. Lost points here.

Worst of all he invited, no demanded, Clinton smack him down which she did with a statement of a lack of experience on his part. He could have easily stated "I do not believe Clinton would do this but I invite any party to substantiate these claims", and leave the conclusions to the me. Could have taken the high road, denied everything and not 'asked for it' then whine when she gave it to him. Lost points here AND gave her a platform for pointing out a perceived flaw in him.

In all O, - 2, Clinton + 1. That is how this whole thing hurt in the eyes of a fence sitter...

It would have forced the Clinton camp to respond without accusing them of anything, and he would have put Novak's story in it's proper place--->the wastebasket.

I know that Bob Novak has no credibility you know that Bob Novak has no credibility but the average voter doesn't and the MSM still pretends that he does.

Politicians are trying to appeal to the average voter and the average voter doesn't realize that Bob Novak is just trying to make himself look important. The average voter thinks that Bob Novak has something substantial, especially with the MSM reports it that way.

Yes, Obama took an unsubstantiated charge and twisted it around to use against Senator Clinton. The thing is that only us political junkies realize that it's unsubstantiated.

Wow!!!

I'm watching Tucker right now and there's not a word about this Novak story today. I haven't had a chance to watch Tweety yet but I have a feeling it will be the same.

Obama nipped this thing in the bud and it's out of the headlines.

If you think I'm wrong please explain to me why. I don't make these threads to promote my candidate. I make them because I want to have discussions about political strategy.

They didn't report on the McClurkin fiasco either. They would never do anything to harm his "top tier" status.

And how Hillary's professional campaign is kicking his ass.

WTF do you mean? The media friggin CREATED Hillary as the front runner. They did this before 04 was even over!!!

Up until now, Hillary got the lion's share of coverage....most of the Dems were not even mentioned....and she has been annointed....again....as the frontrunner....by whom?....by the media! Who else? We haven't had any elections yet!

So now that Hillary had a bad debate awhile ago, and things looked pretty ridiculous with the plant-gate, and the rest....and now Obama has risen in the polls in Iowa and nationally....well, all of a sudden, the media are....like rip van winkle....starting to wake up after a long slumber. And, you guessed it, hillary doesn't get the monopoly on press coverage anymore. And people aren't buying the inevitability fantasy anymore. What's left of the inevitability fantasy is being sold off at flea markets as we speak!

So now the Hillary gaggle is complaining about media bias?

Hillary-ous!

Top Whining Hillaryworld Award goes to this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3747003

It would not have. Period. Maybe one segment on one cable chat show, and then never to be heard of again.

The only reason anyone outside a hardcore of political junkies ever heard a word about it was because Obama forced it to be a national story.

If that was clever, then it was clever. But it was not damage control. Obama created the damage for the purpose of controlling it as a PR exercise.

I still think this would've become a fairly big story if Obama had done nothing.

And I don't doubt that Obama was trying to score points by attacking Clinton. Also a good move for Obama.

Two birds with one stone.

If you believe that about any of the candidates I have a bridge to sell you. Really - everyone has dirt - the question is how each campaign handles it's candidates dirt.

Looks like Obama likes to pretend he has no dirt by throwing someone else's dirt at others.

Obama is not Jesus*.
Biden is not Jesus.
Clinton is not Jesus.
Dodd is not Jesus.
Edwards is not Jesus.
Gravel is not Jesus.
Kucinich is not Jesus.
Richardson is not Jesus.

They all fall short from the glory, they are all human.

* or Budah or Allah etc.

and find all sorts of rumors. Im not going to dignefy them with posting it. But to pretend that your chosen candidate is perfect will backfire in the end.

And...just for the record...Obama is not my candidate. I am undecided between Edwards and Biden at the moment. Crap like yours makes me want to sympathize with Obama, though!

But, back to your blatantly unfounded charge that there is dirt behind Obama and everyone else.

In this country, it is innocent until proven guilty. It is not my responsibility to disprove Obama's dirt. You made the charge. Put up or shut the f up!!!!

And I never said anyone was perfect.

Just. Wow!

Im not going to post dirt on any candidate because I do not like Rovarian politics. It was the OP who said that there was no dirt on Obama at all - I was replying to that comment. Im not saying anyone is guilty of anything Im saying there is dirt on everyone - thats a fact of life. I don't need to back up that assertion - I did not pick on Obama I said ALL of the candidates have dirt. Im sorry if you don't agree but Im not going to post dirt on ANY politician period - weather they be GOP or DEM - it's morally disgusting to promote that type of behavior.

BTW I see dirt as any action in the past that could be used to damage the reputation of a person - that could be anything and it could be interpreted different ways - al you have to do is look at Rove and you will see what I mean - he can take adopting and make it into dirt (as he did in 2000).

That Novak claims she does.

Responding to Novak at all is giving that right-wing hack credibility that he doesn't deserve.

Since when do we believe anything Novak says? Novak was just trying to stir up shit and I don't know why anybody would believe a word he had to say.

Oh, and NOBODY has a squeaky clean past so don't invite a scandal by saying Obama doesn't have something to hide. The fact that he doesn't have a record at all bothers me. You have to have DONE something to have a record and his is pretty much blank.

How was his response flawless when he attacked an opponent based on a right wingers column on something that he had heard from a third party. Novak admitted that someone told him that someone else had told his source that the Clinton campaign had dirt on Obama. Please!!!!!!

It's why all the MSM talking heads were shaking their heads and snickering on Sunday.

I didn't hear any "MSM talking heads shaking their heads and snickering" about the story all week. In fact,
many of them said that considering Novak isn't in the habit of writing false attributions and Obama has been
in the habit of striking back hard at swift boating rumors in the past, this was the only way this story had
to go. I'll bet Chris Lehane won't try that again soon, although I wouldn't put anything past Clinton's slimeball
operatives.

Iowa (no matter how 'important') isn't the whole race anyway.... a presidential campaign is a marathon not a sprint.

Obama over-reacted. Nine months into a presidential campaign and he made this blunder. One of several odd things he's done in the last week.

That's my prediction. By mid-to-late January, it should be obvious from Feb. 5 state polling who's right.

Obama didn't "over-react" at all. He beat the shit out of Hillaryworld. Rightly so. Funny how it took Mark
Penn three times to finally issue a blanket denial. The first two were lame (and very telling) non-denial
denials and didn't fool anyone except Hillaryworlders.

As for blunders, no candidate has blundered more than Clinton this week, between failing miserably at
swiftboating Obama -- and attacking his overseas childhood (which was roundly panned by MSM talking
heads).

Frankly, I hope Clinton keeps attacking/mocking Obama. Iowans will really like that.

lol

Mocking Obama for his childhood diversity is something you would expect from....well, let's put it another way, it is NOT....definately NOT what you would expect from a Democrat.

My biggest problem with hillary, apart for being too conservative, is her unelectability. As for the conservatism, she is marginally better than the Reps but I definately would vote for her in November if we are so cursed as to have her on the ticket.

This thing about mocking Obama's childhood just makes it all the more harder.

It also makes me wonder if her campaign experts haven't a few screws loose in the cognitive area. Whaaaaat are they thinking? This mocking was simply juvenile. And unbecoming a Democrat.

Clinton's snark attack got thoroughly panned the media for the same reasons you mentioned above. I'll bet Iowans didn't like it much, either.

Hilaryworld campaign manager Mark Penn should have stuck with exit poll fixing-coup enabling and being a PR rep for Blackwater,
tobacco companies, and Chinese toy importers hit by lead complaints. The DC insiders that populate her war room are so out-of-touch
with the public that they thought acting like high school "beautiful crowd" bullies would be just Hillaryous. Penn's focus groups aren't
working out too well, are they?

lol

Obama did what was best with Obama. If you think that he went too far out of line for personal gain, I respect that opinion although I don't agree with it.

I thought his response would illicit these kinds of stories but I don't think they have. Maybe not a flawless response but the end result works out for him.

so their opinions are mute. The fact is, all democrats are capable of handling the repubicans and the answer is to come out quick.
Also, Obama knew Clinton had that story planted, he knew there was no dirt and he confronted Hillary with this right away.
I don't know about anyone else, but, this is exactly how it should be handled.

she could have scored some real points in creating Democratic solidarity against smears.

That would have showed the world that she was against the politics of personal destruction...even if it is against her rival.

Even I would have taken a second look at that and I'm NOT a Hillary fan.

Look at Giuliani, saying he appreciates Obama's truthfulness. It looks generous and big of him. Frankly, it earned him brownie points with me.

Hillary might have stepped straight up to the high road. Had she issued a prompt denial and condemnation of the politics of personal destruction, as you note, in defense of a fellow Democratic candidate, Obama would have been eating her dust on this one. She was under no obligation to do so, but it would have been the smarter tactic.