McClatchy reporter leaves out important Obama statement

McClatchy reporter Margaret Talev begins “Is Obama turning out to be just another politician?”

From the beginning, Barack Obama's special appeal was his vow to remain an idealistic outsider, courageous and optimistic, and never to shift his positions for political expediency, or become captive of the Inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia, or kiss up to special interests and big money donors.

In recent weeks, though, Obama has done all those things.

He abandoned public campaign financing after years of championing it. Backed a compromise on wiretap legislation that gives telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping the government conduct spying without warrants. Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother. …

The rest of Talev’s article is here.

Talev’s sentence:

"Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother."

is of course a reference to what Senator Obama said in his March 18 speech in Philadelphia about no more being able to disown his grandmother who made racists remarks that had made him cringe than he could disown his pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But it wasn’t only his grandmother Obama said he could no more disown than Wright. Just before describing his grandmother as a racist, Obama said he could no more disown the black community than disown Wright. (emphasis added)

From the full text of Obama’s speech, here’s the paragraph in which he speaks about his inability to disown the black community, Wright and his grandmother:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

What if instead of referencing his grandmother, Talev and her McClatchy editors reference Obama’s statement he could no more disown the black community than disown Wright.

In that case, in place of:

“Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother.”

Talev's article would have read:

“Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own black community.”

I think there’s quite a difference between the impact those two sentences would have on most readers.

If you told me Talev and her editors thought of that, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Final thought - It's so ironic Talev's article is titled “Is Obama turning out to be just another politician?” given Obama finally "dumped" Wright after he said Obama was "just another politician."