Another Republican blames the ‘gotcha’ media
Thursday, December 4th, 2008…also known to the rest of us as: ‘the media’. Honestly, is blaming the ‘gotcha’ media like pleading the Fifth, or something?
Following in the foot-in-mouth-steps of Sarah Palin, Virginian GOP chairman Jeff Frederick is saying he shouldn’t have been reported in any way when he said something very stupid and very, very wrong about Barack Obama. That’s right: it’s our fault for reporting it, not his fault for saying it.
Via The Jed Report:
‘Virginia’s Republican chairman said Tuesday that his remark tying Democrat Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden during the presidential campaign was stupid, but he refused to apologize…
…Frederick was asked about the remark Tuesday during a discussion of the 2008 Virginia presidential campaign with a group of newspaper editors. Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia in 44 years.
“It was a stupid joke I gave to somebody in a small crowd of people and that’s what happens,” Frederick said. “But you know, it’s really unfortunate. We live in a ‘gotcha’ society.”
Frederick said he got hate mail, angry phone calls and vicious e-mails for weeks.
Even so, he stood by the comment Tuesday, defending it as true and saying he was taking cues from Republican John McCain’s campaign after running mate Sarah Palin said Obama had been “palling around with terrorists.”‘
Oh, and as Jed Lewison points out, Frederick’s original remarks weren’t a joke. Just as the “lame jokes” Sarah Palin referred to in her debate with Joe Biden weren’t jokes, either. Perhaps saying it was a joke is the new ‘blaming the gotcha media’?
