How Hillary’s 2008 campaign committed one of the all-time blunders that gave us Barack Obama

by Dan Curry


Beltway pundits described Hillary Clinton’s campaign entering the 2008 race as a “dream team” consisting of veterans of Clinton presidential and Senate victories. It turns out what many consider the nightmare of a Barack Obama presidency only occurred because of that dream team’s epic incompetence.

We are speaking in particular about a monumental and preventable opposition research failure that has been ignored so far by the mainstream media and the books written by reporters and Democrats about the 2008 campaign.

It comes down to this: If Hillary’s campaign had unearthed and leaked the incendiary Rev. Jeremiah Wright sermon videos that rocked the political world in March 2008 just a few months earlier, it is highly unlikely that Obama would have won the primary. And those DVDs were easily obtainable, sitting in Wright’s church’s gift store.

When the videos of Wright’s sermons did emerge, Obama’s staffers and the political world realized they potentially could derail Obama’s candidacy. It is important, however, to understand the time context. Obama already had essentially won the nomination after more than 40 states had voted or caucused. Obama had a significant delegate lead over Hillary Clinton at that time, 1,893 to 1,617, according to the Washington Post, and only needed an additional 225 delegates to clinch the nomination. After the videos hit, Obama narrowly limped home to the nomination as Hillary outperformed him badly, 302-171 in delegates in the final three months.

The effect on Obama’s candidacy prior to the first contest, Jan. 3, 2008, in Iowa, or soon thereafter, would undoubtedly have been devastating and fatal to a largely undefined Barack Obama. It was clear at the time and in retrospect that Obama’s strategists were heavily banking on a win in Iowa to springboard their candidacy and in effect were placing an all-or-nothing bet on the table. Had Hillary won that contest with Obama a distant third, the pressure within the Democratic Party to coalesce around the “inevitable” Clinton would have rippled through the other early states and likely ensured her nomination.

Ask any Obama strategist today if they could have won the nomination without winning Iowa.

So, could Hillary’s campaign have found the videos and could it have injected them into the public arena? The answer to both questions is yes.

The controversy over Rev. Wright’s sermons was not a secret. It had emerged a year earlier in early 2007 when Rolling Stone went online with a story titled, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama” just days before Obama’s candidacy launch announcement Feb. 10 in Springfield, IL. The story so rattled the Obama team that they pulled Wright from the speaking roster less than 24 hours before Obama’s Springfield event.

As Bernie Goldberg noted in his book, “A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media,” the Rolling Stone story should have triggered a flurry of mainstream media stories on Wright and Obama. Instead, the follow-up coverage was largely non-existent and apologetic.   However, in the opposition research world, the story should have prompted a full exploration of the available evidence of Obama-Wright ties and the top end of any research team’s goals are videos that most dramatically explain the political problem.

Obama’s top strategist David Axelrod admitted in his just released book, “Believer”, the Wright matter was important and said the campaign in early 2007 had assigned a researcher to dig up Obama-Wright material. Newsweek said the same thing in its staff-written 2009 book, “A Long Time Coming…” When the tapes finally did emerge, Axelrod said he went back to the researcher who said the assignment slipped through the cracks.

Fox News cable host Sean Hannity had been highlighting the Rev. Wright-Obama issue in 2007 but did not have the video and was basing his coverage off of an on-camera interview he had done with Wright that questioned the church’s black separatist’s philosophy. The real bombshell hit on March 13, 2008, when ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross unveiled inflammatory excerpts from Wright’s sermons on Good Morning America. Fox News immediately began heavily highlighting the video on its shows for the next several days and the matter exploded into the news arena as the nation’s top political story. Axelrod, in his book, explained:

Two days after the Mississippi primary, however, the story went mainstream when Brian Ross, an investigative reporter for ABC News, ran the now infamous tape on Good Morning America. I was convinced it had been leaked to Ross by an opposing campaign. Later, Ross disclosed that, having been denied an interview with Reverend Wright, he was informed by the church that the DVDs of all Wright sermons were available for purchase. It was a good investment for ABC. The condensed reel Ross put together from the videos sent the political world into an immediate uproar.

Axelrod said had the campaign’s research team done its job, they would have removed the videos from public view like they did with many other records from Obama’s past.

If we had known about these jeremiads, we certainly would have encouraged the church to remove the tapes from their gift shop. We might even have encouraged the Obamas to remove themselves from the church. At the very least we would have been prepared for the onslaught we now faced.

So, Obama’s team failed by not finding the videos, but what about the Hillary dream team? Why didn’t it walk into the church, buy the videos, and drop them through a third party to Fox News to put the dagger to Obama’s candidacy? There is no answer to this question publicly that I have found. The answer must be that Hillary’s dream team was asleep at the switch and consequence is that she lost the nomination.

I wondered about this question since 2008, when I was told by a direct source that ABC had simply walked into Rev. Wright’s church to buy the sermons. As someone who has done opposition research in presidential and many other races, I was surprised. The best information usually isn’t that easy to find.

I wondered why authors of the supposed definitive 2008 campaign history, “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, hadn’t noted this colossal screw-up that fit the title of their book perfectly.

Again, we are reading the smart analysts commenting on how formidable the Clinton campaign will be in 2016 — another dream team in the making. I wonder this time whether it will invest in an opposition research team that is resourceful enough to walk into a gift store of the bomb-throwing preacher of their opponent?


Chicago Tribune’s double standard on ethics

by Dan Curry


Like many newspapers, the Chicago Tribune frequently uses a slippery double standard on ethics to attack Republicans and protect Democrats.

The Tribune reported today that Republican rising star congressman Aaron Schock is “under fire” for using an interior designer to colorfully redo his DC congressional office. Why is he “under fire?” Because, the Tribune notes, “a watchdog group” has asked a congressional ethics office to examine it.

It is a frequently employed liberal media trick to camouflage the partisan identity of “watchdog groups.” The group in question in this instance is Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It is common knowledge that CREW is funded by known leftists such as George Soros and is a group that overwhelmingly attacks Republicans. One estimate is that CREW goes after conservatives eight times more often than liberals. It is no surprise that the news media consistently heralds CREW’s findings across the country.

Of course if Tribune reporters and editors told you CREW was a partisan group, the story would lose some steam. So they omit it.

So, what happens in the Tribune newsroom when a conservative “watchdog group” files an official ethics complaint against a prominent Illinois Democrat member of Congress on a relevant issue in the news? Nothing. The Trib refuses to cover it.

In June of last year, the First Amendment advocacy group known as the Center for Competitive Politics filed an ethics complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee asking it to examine the conduct of nine Democrat Senators, including Illinois’ Dick Durbin, for illegally coercing the Internal Revenue Service to stifle the free speech rights of conservative Americans.

The IRS scandal was deemed an important issue by Barack Obama, Dick Durbin and other Democrats when it emerged. It certainly is more important than whether Aaron Schock accepted a minimal gift from a designer to make his office nice. Yet the Tribune refused to cover the Center for Competitive Politics’ complaint, which truly had some national news value. The only media outlet to cover it was the The Hill, a Washington-based insiders’ newspaper.

These are the games the liberal media plays every day on the pages of our newspapers.


Does a Milwaukee TV reporter hold the key to whether Alstory Simon was framed?

by Dan Curry


                                      Colleen Henry

Right now, the Cook County State's Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit is deep into its re-review of the nationally famous murder exoneration of Anthony Porter and imprisonment of Alstory Simon, who reportedly has been interviewed twice in recent weeks.

The review may pivot on a TV interview of Simon conducted by a well-known, veteran Milwaukee TV reporter.

You can read in detail about Simon's contention he was illegally framed by Northwestern University, a publicity seeking private investigator and a conflicted attorney, with able assists from the prosecutor's office and the news media. But it boils down to this:

  • Was Simon's "confession" a charade, or was it real?
  • Why did Simon persist in playing along with the charade for a time before he contended in court in 2001 that the confession was phony?

Here is why the Nov. 24, 1999 interview of Simon by Milwaukee TV reporter Colleen Henry is so important. Consider the timeline below:

  • Feb. 3, 1999. Simon "confesses" to private investigator Paul Ciolino.
  • Feb. 5, 1999. Anthony Porter is released from prison.
  • Sept. 7, 1999. Simon is sentenced to 37 years in prison based upon his confession.
  • Nov. 24, 1999. Henry airs interview with Simon.
  • Early 2001. Simon files a motion in Cook County Circuit Court saying his confession was coerced and phony.

The obvious question raised by the Henry interview is why on earth would Simon agree to an interview essentially re-confessing to a crime he already was sentenced to prison for?

Simon had already confessed at sentencing so there was no need to impress the court with his contrition.

Simon advocates claim that Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess, investigator Ciolino and attorney Jack Rimland were part of a cabal who conspired to frame him for a crime he didn't commit. They say Protess, Ciolino and Rimland promised a light sentence and riches afterwards from book and movie deals. It was crucial, under this scenario, that the conspirators keep the phony confession from falling apart. One possible way to do this is for the conspirators to urge Simon to do a TV interview AFTER his sentencing.

Indeed, Protess repeatedly has cited the Milwaukee interview as evidence that Simon's confession was real.

After Simon was sent to prison, an unpleasant place where Simon had plenty of time to think, he could have recanted his confession and professed his innocence. But he didn't do it. instead, he granted an interview with Milwaukee TV reporter Colleen Henry.

Again, what motive would Simon have to do such an interview?

I asked Colleen Henry in an email this week. The Simon story was big in Milwaukee as well as Chicago because Simon was living there at the time of his arrest. I asked whether she set up the interview independently, or whether someone urged and/or helped facilitate the Simon interview. Although I don't know whether she knows Protess, she earned a post-graduate journalism degree from Northwestern University.

Here is the main part of my email to her:

As you well know, the re-investigation of the case centers on whether Simon's confession was genuine and uncoerced. Advocates for those who contend Simon's confession was real always point to your interview of Simon where he repeats his confession on camera.

Advocates for Simon contend the coercion was an illegal plot to frame him and that the plotters continually urged Simon to repeat his confession in order to bolster its credibility.

Considering all the above, as a former investigative reporter I believe it is crucial to know how your interview with Simon came about.

Did you seek him out on your own, or did someone first urge or suggest you interview him?

As an ex-journalist, I understand that this is the type of question you won't want to answer. However, considering a man has been sitting in prison for 15 years for a crime he may not have committed, I thought you might make an exception. I would guess that if the answer to my question is the latter scenario, you wouldn't want to be considered part of the scheme to frame an innocent man, even if it presumably was not done wittingly.

She has not responded.

Rimland is a key player here too. If Protess was helping Henry set up the interview, Rimland would presumably have to green light his client's participation in a TV appearance that had no apparent benefit to the inmate.

All this is informed speculation on my part, which very well could be missing context. Colleen Henry could clear what up happened here. I don't blame her for doing the interview; it was her job. However, in retrospect, if the interview was set up by advocates for Anthony Porter, she might have unwittingly been part of a criminal conspiracy that is continuing to imprison an innocent man. Henry, in addition to her career as a TV reporter, is also a lawyer. I'm sure she understands the potential gravity of answering the question above.

I hope she speaks out soon about this.