ABC's Sunlen Miller wrote a misleading blog post a couple days ago titled "Obama Says He'd Consider Arnold For His Cabinet".
Some of the usual suspects like Fox New's Hannity & Colmes and the blogosphere's Taylor Marsh unquestioningly picked this story up in order to bash Obama. But even more respectable outlets like The Sacramento Bee and the Telegraph picked it up. As it turns out, they should have been much more questioning.
The original post by Miller was odd because it didn't provide a transcript of the exchange so readers could see the context. Instead, it almost seemed like it was trying to deceive the readers:
"It’s premature for me to start announcing my cabinet. I mean, I’m pretty confident. but I’m not all that confident. We still got a long way to go," Obama said.
But then the GOP names started to flow.
Sen. Dick Lugar: "He’s a Republicans who I worked with...
Immediately after reading this, red flags went up for me. What did Obama say in between the initial quote provided and the second quote where he talks about Lugar? It wouldn't make any sense for him to just go from one to the other.
In addition to that, Miller had posted a link to this article from August of this year as evidence that Obama "has often said he'd consider putting Republicans in his cabinet". The problem is that he never mentions his Cabinet anywhere in the article. All he says is "There are some very capable Republicans who I have a great deal of respect for" and that they are people he would "seek counsel and advice from". So after seeing how Miller distorted those comments, I wondered if she had similarly distorted his more recent comments.
Well, the Obama campaign has provided the full transcript to a few bloggers who were also suspicious about this and it turns out we were right. She had distorted his words.
Here is the transcript of the exchange via David and Julia at Calitics:
Questioner: Yes, but when you were mentioning those two, they were famous for having Republicans in their administration to help bring the country together. Are there any Republicans that you could tell us about tonight that you would like to be part of the Obama administration?
BO: You know its premature for me to start announcing my cabinet. I mean I'm pretty confident, but not that confident. We've still got a long way to go. I can tell you Republicans I respect though. Dick Lugar who I worked with on issues of arms control., wonderful guy we traveled together to Russia we toured nuclear facilities there. Talked to Russian generals about how countries could cooperate in reducing nuclear threats. He is somebody who embodies a tradition of bipartisan foreign policy that is sensible that is not ideological that is based on the idea that we have to have to have some humility and restraint in terms of our ability to project power around the world and we have to use diplomacy as a tool. Chuck Hagel, Vietnam veteran similar approach. Somebody whom I respect in a similar fashion. You know I don't agree with him on much, but what Schwarzenegger is doing I think on climate change in California is very important and significant. There are things I don't agree with him on, but he's taken leadership on a very difficult issue and we haven't seen that same kind of leadership in Washington, but climate change should not be a partisan issue we're all living on the same planet and there are ways of structuring an approach to climate change like a cap and trade system I've suggested. That can be market driven and generate investment and job opportunities that can grow the economy and that would be a very pro growth agenda over the long term.
So he used the exact same phrase he used in August. And that one phrase changes the whole meaning of his answer. These were guys he respected, not guys he was actively considering for a Cabinet post. There's a huge difference there.
The fact that he would be considering Republicans for his Cabinet wouldn't be a major story since every President in recent history has included a token member of the other party in his Cabinet. Still, I know some people, including myself, were concerned that he would name Arnold as a potential Cabinet member when the Gropenator is not really qualified to fill any post and would probably be a disaster even if he is a decent guy for a Republican. So hopefully this clears all that up.
As for Miller, perhaps she was just trying to innocently spice up her story. But this isn't the first time. She's also written posts like "Michelle Obama Joins Hillary Bashing" which didn't include any actual bashing other than pointing out Hillary wasn't "inevitable" and answering a question about Hillary being seen as polarizing by saying "That is definitely one of the challenges she faces. You can see it in the surveys." Miller was also one of the reporters behind the story about Obama not wearing a flag pin.
In the end, though, this is a reminder that we need to question stories like this that clearly don't give us the full story.