08hayabusa: Ogletree's I Was Just Kidding Excuse Doesn't Survive Scrutiny

by Dan Riehl

Charles Ogletree has responded to a controversial Breitbart video that captured him admitting to concealing background information on Barack Obama from public scrutiny during Obama's 2008 run for the presidency. His "I was only kidding" excuse doesn't hold up when compared to what can now be justifiably called an emerging pattern of willful deception linked directly to the Obama campaign, as Olgetree was an Obama campaign adviser.

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree told the Herald he was just kidding when he suggested that a decades-old clip of a young Barack Obama praising and embracing controversial Professor Derrick Bell was kept hidden from voters during the 2008 campaign.

In fact, Ogletree has already admitted to the very same behavior as regards another controversial figure, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, so we now know there were at least two instances in which Barack Obama's campaign engaged in acts of willful deception to conceal his close association with radical figures during his 2008 campaign.

Add in Obama's own misleading comments as regards the highly controversial Bill Ayers being just a guy from his neighborhood and a definite pattern begins to emerge. One instance may, or may not, be a joke - three instances amounts to a pattern of willful deception.

As for Ogletree's official 2008 connection to the Obama campaign, a web search turns up several mentions of his having been appointed to Obama's black advisory council, or simply an adviser in some cases. In terms of said Black Advisory Council, see page 5 of this pdf for example. A Wiki entry also cites the same National Journal report as the source for that claim. Unfortunately, the provided link comes up dead and a search of the National Journal website appears to turn up nothing relevant.

Another campaign adviser is Charles Ogletree, a Harvard Law School professor.... National Journal identiﬁed prominent radicals on the Obama presidential campaign’s black advisory council. (“Obama’s Inner Circle,” March 31, 2008).

At approximately 47 seconds into this video (clip 2), you'll hear Ogletree state: (emphasis mine)

And we were caught up in Reverend Wright's rhetoric as the former pastor of Barack Obama. And amazingly, he sort of disappeared from the scene. He has a book that was scheduled to come out in August, than in October. I can't tell you where that book is, or where he is, but you'll see him after November 5th. (laughter)

Curious sense of humor has Charles Olgetree. According to him, first Jeremiah Wright and now Derrick Bell had to disappear from the public eye, or as too closely linked to Barack Obama, in 2008 as far as the Obama campaign was concerned. If the progressive audiences Ogletree was speaking to got the joke, it was more likely the joke the Obama campaign pulled off on the American electorate in 2008, not one Ogletree would now attempt to claim he was making as yet one more means of avoiding the truth about Barack Obama, who many now view as the radical in the White House.

In the recently released video to which he has now responded, Ogletree said basically the same thing he did regarding Wright. Only this time, it was in regard to video depicting Barack Obama speaking out on behalf of controversial Professor Derrick Bell. (emphasis mine)

"Open your hearts and open your minds to the words of Prof. Derrick Bell." Those are the words of Barack Obama in reference to the controversial racialist Derrick Bell. Prof. Charles Ogletree, Barack Obama's mentor said "We hid this throughout the 2008 campaign."

A Michelle Malkin blog posting from 2008 mostly sums up the Ayres controversy.

Ayers is not only a flag-trampling apologist for domestic terror. He’s an inveterate liar. Andy McCarthy refreshes your memory.Obama can wrap himself in the flag and attempt to gag his critics, but his false portrayal of Ayers as just a guy in the neighborhood is not going to fly. Obama’s friend is America’s enemy. And America deserves to know.

The above constitutes three separate instances in which deception, or concealment, were employed to keep America from finding out everything there was to legitimately know about Barack Obama prior to his being elected President. It's also possible, we still don't know what we do not know. Breitbart media's vetting of Barack Obama is ongoing. Two additional factors also play a part in Obama and his campaign being able to get away with this.

It's reasonably well known the McCain campaign was reluctant to attack Obama. McCain adviser Mark McKinnon made his feelings clear in February of 2008, saying he would step down if McCain's opponent ended up being Barack. More recently, when a McCain opposition research file from 2008 emerged, it was felt that much of the research had not been utilized back in 2008.

As for the complicity of the media, that case now seems open and shut. Few doubt that, had Obama been running as a Republican in 2008, every statement he ever made and every association he ever had would have been fair game for the press. Yet, it's only now that Breitbart is re-focusing the issue that it's beginning to be talked about in the broader media. PBS may have aired something way back when, national networks didn't demonstrate any interest in doing anything with it.

Not only that, but from their already beginning to spin for Obama now, to covering up his connection to Ayers and never pursuing his links to Derrick Bell, it's beyond fair to say the national media was complicit in allowing Americans to elect a man President without ever truly having any real idea of what he was, or is.

Again, flashback to 2008 via Michelle Malkin:

Despite only partial review of the papers, some outlets are pooh-poohing the disclosures. The Chicago Tribune writes: “A partial examination of the documents did not reveal anything startling about the link between Obama, the Democratic presidential contender, and Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, a Vietnam-era anti-war group that claimed responsibility for several bombings.”
And yet:

And yet? Now, thanks to the vision and drive of Andrew Breitbart, the work of the Breitbart sites and a host of right-leaning New Media outlets and conservative blogs, the vetting of Barack Obama Andrew Breitbart wanted, fought for and insisted upon, may finally get done.