Yet more misinfo and spin from Fran Eaton about a Christian pastor.

No sooner had I posted my comments about Fran Eaton’s “anti-Christian” rhetoric regarding Sen. Obama and his church’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, than she has a post up over at the Ill Review saying Rev. Wright “can’t take the heat” and has written an “angry” response to the recent NY Times mountain-out-of-a-molehill misinfo-pimping article by Jodi Kantor.

One wonders if the Illinois Review Editor knows how to read, let alone put two-and-two together.

Continue reading “Faster than a speeding bullet…” on the flip.

Ms. Eaton links to Chicago Tribune reporter Manya Brachear’s blogpost on the topic, but does not link to the original NY Times article (it’s easy enough to find it online) and only indirectly links to Rev. Wright’s methodical, well-considered response (I say indirect because Wright’s response is included in the Tribune blogpost). His letter hardly sounds “angry”, though he is clearly perturbed to have been taken out of context in the media (more on that in a few sentences).

In his words (from the letter’s opening):

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

See? Not angry. Perturbed.

Ms. Eaton remarks that it’s “unprecedented” for an organization to prepare rules of engagement for the media (Ms. Eaton’s words) “policies and procedures for use with outside media sources” (the church’s words).Gimme a break.

Ms. Eaton has worked on political campaigns before. I’m sure she’s also come across, maybe even worked with, businesses that routinely deal with the media. Media response guidelines are standard practice in politics, business, and any other large organization — hardly “unprecedented”. They are especially useful for an organization like Trinity UCC, an 8500-member church which now finds itself as go-to source in the media’s Story of a Man Named Obama.

If Ms. Eaton had bothered to note why Rev. Wright chose to write a public response to the Kantor article, she would have seen several of the same concerns about media reportage from the Reverend that she and others have also noted (sometimes quite frequently, if erroneously). But in her partisanship, she ignores this in order to get more scratch against Sen. Obama’s pastor.

For one thing, Rev. Wright notes that the interview was approximately 2 hours (that’d be 120 minutes). The discussion of Rev. Wright and the political announcement for presidential candidacy lasted only about 5-7 minutes based on his recollection. That’s a mere 4-6% of the interview, yet it got huge play in a story that was supposed to have been about Sen. Obama’s faith calling (and I don’t buy Ms. Brachear’s excuse-making for Ms. Kantor).

For another thing, how many times have we heard from conservative media-haters about reporters’ bias or lack of clarity?

Ms. Eaton herself has had the exact same thing happen to her with the media taking away only a tiny snippet from a lengthy interview. Indeed, it happened to her while talking to Trib reporter Brachear while Ms. Brachear was preparing an article on the (drumroll, please) very same issue of Sen. Obama’s faith, and the misinformation Ms. Eaton has been promoting about his church. In one of her many other posts in which she rails against Sen. Obama’s Christian pastor, Ms. Eaton reveals, “The piece includes one line from a 45 minute long interview between IR Editor Fran Eaton and Tribune reporter Manya Brachear.”

So much for intellectual honesty and actually thinking before writing something…

Just for giggles, what was the one thing that Reporter Brachear quoted Ms. Eaton on?

Race is sensitive subtext in campaign
Chicago Tribune

“I question his . . . ability to be able to reach out to a lot of people when he is committed to a group of people who are focused on helping a certain group of people,” said Fran Eaton, editor of Illinois Review, a conservative political blog. “It seems wrong.”

Here’s a quarter for the Clue Bus, Ms. Eaton: All politicians are focused on helping certain groups of people. For Pres. Bush, that would be his self-proclaimed “base” — the filthy rich. For Sen. Obama, that “certain group of people” appears
to be those who have been historically downtrodden and left behind.

If helping people seem “wrong”, Ms. Eaton, you’re in the wrong business. You yourself have “helped” certain groups of people from time to time. But perhaps in Ms. Eaton’s realm it’s not “wrong” if she helps certain groups of people.