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Press Corps Mess-Up on Obama Meeting with Palestinians (Corrected)

July 23, 2008 10:18 AM

Earlier today a pool reporter traveling with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, here in Israel accidentally crunched together editorial language from a colleague with a statement from the Palestinian National Authority, after Obama met in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the Mukata, the president's compound.

The reporter distrubuted the combined statement which thus transmitted inaccurate information to other members of the press corps, including this one, attributing the thoughts of a reporter to President Abbas. Apologies for passing on this faulty information.

At the meeting, Obama sat to the left of Abbas, Fayyed to Abbas' right. A small coffee table and Palestinian flag sat between them, photos of the late Yasser Arafat and Abbas hung on the wall. Obama advisers Dennis Ross, Jim Steinberg, Dan Shapiro. Susan Rice, and Dan Kurtzer were also there. 

After the meeting, Obama, Abbas, and a phalanx of security guards walked down to the senator's motorcade.

More information in a bit...

- jpt

July 23, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (53)

User Comments

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If there was an interview, good or bad, and McCain made yet another error, then shouldn't it be covered. We are trying to elect a president here, not a puppet. Cover the news as it happens and allow the American people to come to their own conclusions. Since when is reporting editorialized? Anything thing less than fair and open news coverage is news censorship and violates the trust of the American viewer.

Posted by: janie nycum | Jul 25, 2008 7:47:19 AM

The Tower of Babel - it has started for The One! Let it be!

Posted by: Beckie | Jul 23, 2008 7:28:36 PM

BUNCH OF SEXIST BOZO BULL:
"Belle...no sweetie, he defined himself totally when he gave up a lucritive career to work for $10,000 a year in the projects in Chicago to get health care and fair housing for the poor. "
_______(snip)___
He gave up NOTHING! He Never gives up ANYTHING unless it suits his political needs.

You remember the NEW YORKER cover which got several of you perturbed a week or two ago?


Well INSIDE the cover.... is this great wonderful full coverage of Obama through all his political stabbings and slammings of his friends .. and foes in his scrambling to the top of the political dirt heap!

In one election..... Obama got rid of ALL of his competitors in one swell foop!!

He is green enough to be slimey!

His long term associations with unsavory compadres are questionable!

HE is Cocky enough to be dangerous!

Obama should be treated with particular Caution...not political passion.


Posted by: BE CAREFUL!!! | Jul 23, 2008 2:42:28 PM

this update is too funny....change, change, change...change, change, change

Posted by: strike a pose | Jul 23, 2008 2:20:52 PM

Are the Palestinians buying this "reporter" story?

Posted by: Belle Starr | Jul 23, 2008 2:05:27 PM

Jake you got to admit the most amazing thing about this trip is the schedule ...all the speaking and clear headed thinking that has to go on...

and Obama is flying through it.

Mickey C is having a tough time after the drive from Portsmouth to Kennebunkport without a nap.

He may have been virile at the beginning of the primary but Johnny C. looks like the schedule is taking a toll on his brain.

Obama seems to be getting even better with the lack of sleep.

Posted by: dl | Jul 23, 2008 1:46:52 PM

Mary this part of the trip is not taxpayers money.

get your facts straight.

Posted by: dl | Jul 23, 2008 1:42:02 PM

I don't expect I'm the only person who's having difficulty believing this account. Identifying the reporter MIGHT help.

Posted by: Belle Starr | Jul 23, 2008 1:41:02 PM

Senator Obma's trip is something like a traveling circus and Obama is the main clown. It would be funny if not for the fact, he is using taxpayers dollars and represententing our government. This man is a joke and a dud. No experience, intergity and judgment.

Posted by: Mary | Jul 23, 2008 1:38:55 PM

Gee, now a 400,000-gallon (!) oil spill closes the Mississippi River, with a hurricane coming in. No connection, probably -- "just words".

Posted by: Edgar Cayce | Jul 23, 2008 1:21:51 PM

Dennis Ross
-----
One of the neo-cons. Great.

Posted by: Belle Starr | Jul 23, 2008 1:00:19 PM

I do not understand what you are talking about.

Posted by: Vanessa | Jul 23, 2008 12:54:24 PM

I'd vote for having no President over McCain. The guy is still trying to justify Vietnam -- an undeclared, illegal war -- plus sell himself as a war hero when his most notable action there was to get shot down, then captured. He's hardly'a war hero like Audie Murphy or Alvin York who didn't use legitimate wartime heroics for political gain.
Sterling Greenwood
Aspen Free Press

Posted by: AspenFreePress | Jul 23, 2008 12:46:31 PM

HP...you'd better get used to it. He will be the next president and you'll be seeing him everyday on TV. I , for one, will be glad when I don't have to look at Bush anymore....

Posted by: formerhillary | Jul 23, 2008 12:01:26 PM
-------------------------------------
Who the heck looks at the shrub......just say no to TV!

Posted by: HP Boston | Jul 23, 2008 12:19:19 PM

Belle...no sweetie, he defined himself totally when he gave up a lucritive career to work for $10,000 a year in the projects in Chicago to get health care and fair housing for the poor.

Posted by: truthtell | Jul 23, 2008 12:04:04 PM

HP...you'd better get used to it. He will be the next president and you'll be seeing him everyday on TV. I , for one, will be glad when I don't have to look at Bush anymore....

Posted by: formerhillary | Jul 23, 2008 12:01:26 PM

McCain has has thirty years in Congress to do "Something". He is still talking and not resolving anything.

Posted by: cjvwise1 | Jul 23, 2008 12:01:05 PM

Allow me to clarify.

Losers are lost in front line fighting, while winner's children are kept to more protected areas of battle to build resume. In every conflict there are winners and losers. The winners make money from the spoils of war and never have to face the loss of a child in the fight. Their profits provide protection for their elite lifestyle. Meanwhile, the losers are the families not rich enough to keep their children from the front lines. The winners will do anything and say anything to keep the fight going and the revenue flowing. Obama jeopardizes the flow of revenue. Thus he is being portrayed by McCain and his fellow Republicans as "the worst thing that could happen to America." I am always baffled by politicians. They cannot do anything in Washington to resolve our problems at home, but they always have the "solutions" for others.

Posted by: cjvwise1 | Jul 23, 2008 11:58:04 AM

"When has Obama faced a character-defining moment in his life?"
-----
When he got mobsters to kick in for his ostentatious housing?

When he dismissed the woman who raised him as a "typical white person"?

When he voted for FISA?

Posted by: Belle Starr | Jul 23, 2008 11:57:36 AM

Dear cjvwise1 | Jul 23, 2008 11:41:06 AM:

You seem to be unaware that John and Cindy McCain have a son fighting on the front lines in Iraq—as do many other Republican’s and Democrats alike, so let’s be fair and accurate.

The cost of this awful, ill-advised war—both economically and personally as well as the cost to America’s prestige abroad—are felt equally by Republicans and Democrats.


Posted by: Stephen Gianelli | Jul 23, 2008 11:51:52 AM

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