real journalism ...albeit a little too self congratulatory. Still, a welcome peek at the right-wing playbook; won't be surprised to see more stunts like this in the coming year.

This raises my appreciation for CNN up a whole lot. It would have been very easy for them to just say that he did not go to a madrasa, and here is why. They took it to the next level with proof. Way to go, CNN!

For a second there I thought I was watching the daily show with that montage of anchors calling him a rock stat

Kudos to them indeed...

But yeah, I find it strange how self-congratulatory and proud of themselves they are for doing their basic job description.

Oh well, if that's the motivation they need to do serious journalism, then more power to them.

Even CNN messed this story up. For B-roll footage they reuse the same jakarta footage to illustrate both the allegied muslim hard core school, and Obama's actual real school. Look at 1/4 into the story just after "Insider" screen and then 2/3 into it when they show the real school.

Kudos to CNN for their impeccable journalistic ability and achivements in B-Roll hygene.

I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary Clinton did leak that information. It makes perfect sense. Obama is her biggest obstacle in receiving the Democrat's presidential nomination. If they knock him out of the running, the Democrats will be united behind Hillary and have a greater chance of winning.

Obama should use the ol' 'she's a lesbian' trick. haha jk

Wasn't this information in Obama's own autobiography?

The right doesn't like maddrassahs now? They thought they were the shit when the CIA in cooperation with Pakistan's ISI were supporting them to train "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers" (the Great Communicators words on the mujahedin in Afghanistan who later became the Taliban and al Qaeda.)

Probably the most subversive effect of the privatized jihad was on the madrassahs, many of which were turned into politico-military training schools. The point was to integrate guerrilla training with the teachings of Islam and thus create "Islamic guerrillas." The London-based Indian journalist Dilip Hiro commented in the curriculum of the madrassahs: "Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete sociopolitical ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow." The madrassahs not only opened their doors to Islamic radicals from around the world but also taught that the Islamic revolution in Afghanistan would be but a precursor to revolution in other Muslim-majority countries, particularly those in Soviet Central Asia.

... 'The skills passed on by trainers to fighters included "the use of sophisticated fuses, timers and explosives; automatic weapons with armor-piercing ammunition, remote-control devices for triggering mines and bombs (used later in the volunteers' home countries, and against the Israelis in occupied Arab territory such as southern Lebanon).

... [A] team of Los Angeles Times reporters who carried out an investigation [in 1996] into the aftermath of the Afghan War "over four continents" found that the key leaders of every major terrorist attack, from New York to France to Saudi Arabia, inevitably turned out to have been veterans of the Afghan War. - Mamood Mamdani in Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, And The Roots of Terror, p.136 - 139

Oh, so now major news organizations have finally woken from their slumber and decided to confront head-on the right-wing mud slingers?

Where were they? Glad to have them back! Now get cracking!

Dark Ninja, your joking right? Please tell me your joking... People who think things like that are EXACTLY why they do dishonest things like this. Bogus stories travel up the media foodchain, and besmirch the would-be candidates.

There was an excellent article on this on the CBC's website which I blogged about yesterday.

It's quite telling about the current state of racial tensions in America that Sen. Obama is viewed with suspicion for attending a predominantly Muslim school AS A CHILD, and legislators such as Strom Thurmond, who were vehemently and openly racist DURING THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS, are re-elected time after time.

To bring that into present day, Trent Lott barely got a slap on the wrist for saying that we'd all be lot better off if Thurmond had been elected President when he was running on a segregation platform

Does anyone think Obama would get elected if he'd said we'd all be better off if Jesse Jackson had been elected President instead of Reagan?

Sorry, no. The story here is not the debunking of the rumor. The story/intent is to reinforce the association between Obama and Islam, or Obama and Uncertain Connections/Loyalties. This major media outlet has let us know about an obscure hackjob article that we would otherwise have never known about. Even though come across on the surface as being on Obama's side, the real job is to reinforce the reflex associations. This goes on all the time. Everything in big media now is subtext.