Tribune's Interview of Obama

Why such a softball question on the issue of Obama's pastor?

Obama sat down for an interview with the Tribune editorial board, to establish the notion that he is being forthright and honest. But if you sit and down and read the (edited) interview, he gets lots of free passes.

Read this question the Tribune asks him:

Tribune: The issue of [former U.S. Rep.] Geraldine Ferraro's comments on the role your race has played in this campaign. Then comes the video that has comments that your pastor Jeremiah Wright has made. How are we to look at these, what's the best way to look at this and in what context do you put them to the American people?

Why does the Tribune equate his pastor's racist and anti-Semitic remarks with Ferraro's? Obama has been a member of the church for 20 years and just this week denounces the pastor's comments, even though the pastor christened his children and married him, and he took his book title, The Audacity of Hope, from one of the pastor's sermons. Ferraro's comment wasn't even racist, and she isn't in the same position to Clinton as the pastor is to Obama. Here was an opportunity for the Tribune to make Obama explain himself, but instead, the editorial board asked an open-ended question that's basically allowing him to equate his pastor's remarks with Ferraro's. This is a question that reveals the paper's bias.

And what about this question:

Tribune: There's been some sense that you've treated Sen. Clinton with kid gloves on the issue of ethical standards. If she were to do a session like this, what do you think we ought to ask her about?

What is the Tribune talking about? The media has been giving Obama a "kid glove" treatment on the issue of ethical standards--haven't they seen the SNL sketch that Hillary Clinton made reference to? Whose sense are they talking about--their own warped one? Here again is an open question allowing Obama to turn the lens onto Hillary when this is supposed to be a chance for him to sit down and answer tough questions about himself, his association with Rezko and his pastor.

Notice how many times Obama says "I'll be honest with you." Why continually use this phrase--isn't it assumed throughout this whole "frank" interview that he's always being frank and honest?