Obama Campaign Makes Some Revisions to Its Candidate's Resume
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Truth Hurts
Barack Obama's Fight the Smears Web site had to make some adjustments when one of the alleged "smears" turned out to be true.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The political blog Gateway Pundit reports that Thursday the Web site read, "Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity."
But the Cleveland Leader newspaper discovered documents proving that Obama did work as a trainer for the voter registration group. The Obama camp claims its candidate trained for the position but was never hired.
The Web page now reads, "Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Quiet as a Mouse?
Speaking of ACORN, it apparently tried to register Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida. The Saint Petersburg Times reports Orange County elections officials rejected the bogus application.
ACORN is denying any involvement, saying it scans suspicious applications. ACORN's head organizer in Florida Brian Kettenring says, "We don't think this card came through our system."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But The Times reports the application was stamped with ACORN's logo. Republican National Committee Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross describes ACORN as a "quasicriminal organization" and says, "This is part of a widespread and systematic effort... to undermine the election process."
Paper Trail
Barack Obama reportedly authorized money for education programs with extreme anti-American views during his time in charge of Chicago's Annenberg Challenge — the organization co-founded by '60s domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}National Review columnist Stanley Kurtz writes that in 1996 the Coalition for Improved Education in Chicago's South Shore received a $200,000 grant from Annenberg. That group was part of the South Shore African Village Collaborative which Kurtz calls thoroughly "Afrocentric" and held what he called "a carbon-copy of Jeremiah Wright's worldview."
Kurtz says the group's curriculum was centered around the rites of passage movement — a form of black nationalism. One sympathetic study conducted by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock in 1992 and published in the "Journal of Negro Education" says the movement came about because American socialization is "genocidal to the African-American community," and that African-Americans need to "counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society."
Ballot Brawl
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Democratic and Republican poll workers clashed at an Ohio nursing home Monday when one accused the other of ballot tampering. The Akron Beacon Journal reports the scuffle broke out at the Gardens of Western Reserve facility in Summit County.
Seventy-three-year-old Democrat Edith Walker allegedly jumped on the back of 75-year-old Republican George Manos and began hitting him in the head with her fists. Manos says two other election workers had to pull walker off his back.
The volunteers were assisting a resident who reportedly wanted to vote for John McCain but her ballot was initially marked for Senator Obama. Walker — the Democrat — says Manos grabbed the ballot from her hand, accused her of marking it incorrectly and that "he was very mean to me." Manos says Walker refused to show him the ballot, then marked it a second time.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The incident is being investigated by the police department and the Summit County Elections Board.
— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.