Obama smear campaign moves to press club
Anne Davies in Washington
June 18, 2008
THE Washington media are about to be consumed by a new debate: how much attention they should give scandalous claims about Barack Obama when the man making them appears at the National Press Club today.
Larry Sinclair, from Minnesota, became famous – or infamous – when he posted a YouTube video last year alleging he and Senator Obama used cocaine together and participated in homosexual acts in 1999.
According to Mr Sinclair, the liaison occurred in the back of a limo while the presumptive Democratic nominee was in the Illinois Senate, but beyond that, Mr Sinclair has been vague about dates and locations.
There is no proof of the allegations and when Mr Sinclair offered to take a polygraph test last year, he failed it. It’s also instructive that none of Senator Obama’s opponents has embraced his claims.
But now Mr Sinclair has booked a conference room at the National Press Club, the premier venue for press conferences in Washington, and he plans to air the allegations again.
The mainstream media are unsure about how to treat his claims and the move to host him at the National Press Club has outraged liberal websites, which have moved well beyond reportage to activism. Firedoglake.com, edited by Jane Hamsher, has assembled an online petition signed by nearly 11,500 people and has delivered it to the club, urging it to check the facts of Mr Sinclair’s story before giving him the stage.
– Former vice-president Al Gore offered a vigorous endorsement of Senator Obama on Monday and urged Democrats to keep in mind the consequences of not taking the general election with grave seriousness.
The two strode onto the stage arm in arm to thundering applause from a crowd of nearly 20,000 people in Detroit. As Mr Gore ticked through a long list of challenges facing the nation, he hailed Obama as “clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America”.
with The New York Times
This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/06/17/1213468422063.html
::Tullycast:: 
Larry Sinclair has thus far failed to produce a single viable piece of evidence. Is it any wonder nobody in the mainstream media wants to risk their career and credibility covering this farce?
Legally and morally, the burden is on Sinclair to prove his allegations, not on Obama to disprove them. Larry Sinclair knows this, but he is banking (quite literally) on the fact that the court of public opinion operates quite differently than a court of law, and isn’t making any substantial effort to prove his accusations. He knows that it’s hard to prove you DIDN’T do something, and is rallying the ignorant under this pretense to send him contributions (and any other number of other ‘fundraising’ activities of questionable legality).
I’ve been trying to get Mr. Sinclair to response to questions on his blog (simple ones, like “If you think Obama’s phone records would prove you right, why don’t you provide your phone records, they should work just as well, right?” ), but the blog is so heavily moderated that not one single real question can get through, and apparently even his own worshipers are now having a hard time posting due to overaggressive comment deletion.
I know several people who’ve tried to ask questions of Mr. Sinclair, but that is apparently not allowed on his blog, despite the fact that his blog clearly states “You may comment on any post, regardless of your position. However, please note that any and all abusive, threatening and vulgar comments and emails will result in your user name, email address and IP address being posted regardless and without the posters permission. You have been warned.” .
Small wonder, huh? The guy who wants to force Obama to answer his questions will not answer anyone else’s 🙂
I personally would love it if someone in the media just exposed this guy for the fraud he is. I’d watch that episode for certain, and I’m sure the advertisers would be well pleased by the number of viewers 😉
Thanks for the well written reply.
I can’t figure out what Larry Sinclair is up to but I must say that he is more than a little problem for the Obama team.
The Donald Young murder plus the other two church members murdered execution-style would be a starting point.