She's all class.

Often the candidate's spouse is the more strategic of the two.

Period.

Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be, especially if it is someone that has served in their administration in such a close capacity.. you think people are getting heartburn now..

.... giving the impression that she is holding off endorsement of Joe Biden in particular due to the Harris- Biden dust-up by creating a hybrid of two different talking points. This has become a growing trend among the, let's say, word magicians of journalism.


"Barack and I are going to support whoever wins the primary"

There is a big difference in being clever, and thinking you are.

The corporate-owned media will stop at nothing to create "interest" even as our democracy falls.

Controversy, in large part, is what fuels the media. Deception is often the primer.

So on one side we have misleading, handwringing "whataboutism" and on the other side we have blatant, cold-blooded lies.

We're doomed.

.... the only thing that can defeat us will be people not rallying around the eventual nominee. Of course there will be other obstacles to overcome, but I believe this will ultimately decide the outcome. If enough people show up at the voting booth, the lies, propaganda, and distortions will not be enough to turn the tide.

could easily get the idea that she was hesitant to support or was even rejecting Biden.

I gave the effort a

We have to stop calling for this nonsense and call it out - like you did.

.... every time I see it.

Extremely wise (and also appropriate) for them to refrain from primary endorsements and equally to refrain from commentary about specific candidate statements.

As anyone would expect, President Obama and even Michelle Obama will not be endorsing any primary candidate. Anyone who expected them to doesn't understand Democratic politics at all.

There will be no endorsements from either of them until after the Democratic Convention next summer. Then, they will heartily endorse and support the Democratic nominee.

For pete's sake!

As always!!

It's unlike OUR FLOTUS to mess this up.

""It is early; it's like trying to figure out who's winning the World Series on the first seven games."

???

lets look at that claim, here is the headline from the OP article:

Michelle Obama won't comment on Biden apology, holds off on endorsement at Essence Festival

HEADLINE: "Michelle Obama won't comment on Biden apology"

ARTICLE: "Former first lady Michelle Obama refused to comment on the Kamala Harris-Joe Biden "dust up," as moderator Gayle King called it, Saturday night,"

Well, that part of the headline isn't misleading at all, it's very accurate.



HEADLINE: [Michelle Obama] "holds off on endorsement at Essence Festival"

ARTICLE: "The former first lady also said her and her husband would not be endorsing any candidate from the crowded field, saying they would support whomever wins the primary."

That part of the headline is 100% accurate too.

So, why are posts claiming that the headline is "misleading'?

Disappointment? Frustration? Upset that Michelle Obama said:

"Barack and I are going to support whoever wins the primary, so ... our primary focus is letting the primary process play out, because it's very early," she said. "I mean, that's one of the things that we learned in the campaign. It is early; it's like trying to figure out who's winning the World Series on the first seven games. I mean that's where we are right now, it is so early." ?

.... separated by a comma, and not a period.

"Michelle Obama won't comment on Biden apology, holds off on endorsement"

Disappointment? Frustration? Not at all.

Your post sounds like a desperate attempt to justify the writer's amateurish attempt to take a cheap shot at Joe Biden.

Why not stick to the topic we are discussing? You claim the headline in the article is not misleading. I say, along with the majority on this thread, it is absolutely misleading, and is a hybrid of two different talking points linked together in a manner which sounds detrimental to Joe Biden.

The first talking point is she will not comment on the Harris Biden dust-up.

The second talking point is that she and Barack will support the Democratic nominee, and will not endorse anyone until the nominee is chosen.

The headline is a hybrid of the two, and I actually think you know that.

If Biden supporters want to read some slight against him into it, feel free.

But the headline is 100% factually accurate, I even broke that down in my first post.

Honestly, it seemed to me that several posters were being over-sensitive about the headline and reading things into it.


Thanks for the discussion. I appreciate you sharing your opinion of the OP with me, and thanks for listening to mine.

The juxtaposition of the two thoughts can easily lead someone to believe that the second phrase is somehow related to the first phrase, when really they are two completely independent thoughts that were not part of the same piece of the interview. The English language is funny that way... yes, things can be literally true yet communicate something that is not. Kind of like "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

Unlike some, perhaps, I don't see this as any intentional hit on Biden. I think it's just typical sloppy journalism, conflating two disparate ideas into a single unifying headline. In a newspaper, they way they try to avoid this is with headlines and sub-heads. Making one sentence out of two thoughts naturally implies a relationship between the two thoughts. The fact that she actually said both things doesn't inherently make the sentence that combines the two things truthful in the idea it communicates.

I posted this down thread:

"It's 100% factually correct, but posts have been calling it "misleading", feeling it singled out Biden by using a "," instead of a ";" or a "." to separate the phrases.

Some people feel that makes the headline obviously misleading.

OK. It didn't read that way to me, but people are entitled to their opinions.
I can't help but feel that's being overly sensitive about the headline though, but to each their own.
Maybe Biden's recent decline in the polls has people on edge, who knows. "


So, I understand the point some people are making, but I really do feel they are being overly sensitive about a headline. The article discusses both points in detail.

Thanks for the discussion.

and it didn't have to be. But then, I relate to this...

Call me silly, but I bet if Biden was leading in the polls by 60%, no one would have mentioned this headline.

Thanks for the discussion.

.....that you broke it down, according to your own perception, in your first post. Yeah, I am quite satisfied with our exchange, and appreciate your input.
Right back at ya!

You might want to read the post I made up thread about how I understand what people are saying about how the two phrases were linked. All the coma, semicolon, period discussion -- and I understand the distinction they are making.

Thanks again for the discussion.

Rest assured that if Elizabeth Warren is the eventual nominee, I will be all in with my support.

I will say the same about supporting Biden if he's the nominee.

Okie Dokie.

Got it.

"The former first lady also said her and her husband would not be endorsing any candidate from the crowded field, saying they would support whomever wins the primary."

"Barack and I are going to support whoever wins the primary, so ... our primary focus is letting the primary process play out, because it's very early," she said. "I mean, that's one of the things that we learned in the campaign. It is early; it's like trying to figure out who's winning the World Series on the first seven games. I mean that's where we are right now, it is so early." ?

Also known as the ad hominem fallacy

Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.

I'll leave it at that.

Elizabeth Warren doesn't need the media to make shit up in order to win.

Asking her that question was to keep the story going

pot stirrers!

That both Barack and Michelle will be on that stage right beside whoever gets the nomination.

I want screaming rallies with Obamas and Oprah and a stage filled with other celebrities and audiences screaming Trump he's not our type!
Media attention like we have never seen before.

I want Barack and Michelle on every talk show,every late night show plugging whoever is the nominee .

and it's not the candidates who are accusing her husband of having poor judgement - that's for sure.

However, an endorsement is different than "support" and this will come after the Primaries.

Not everyone. I've read her book, Becoming, and followed her comments and speeches and have no idea who Mrs. Obama supports in the Democratic primary.

The media just loves that 'gotcha,' doesn't it?

What better way to stir people up than to imply that Michelle Obama refuses to endorse Biden specifically because of comments about working with segregationists? Because, hey, our SHAREHOLDERS NEED MORE PROFITS and we have to drive clicks, so we have to create controversy even when there is none!

Because that's how we roll in this corporate-media news-topia!

And, hey, while you're at it check out ABC's GREAT NEW LINEUP!

It's 100% factually correct, but posts have been calling it "misleading", feeling it singled out Biden by using a "," instead of a ";" or a "." to separate the phrases.

Some people feel that makes the headline obviously misleading.

OK. It didn't read that way to me, but people are entitled to their opinions.
I can't help but feel that's being overly sensitive about the headline though, but to each their own.
Maybe Biden's recent decline in the polls has people on edge, who knows.

But your post is now attributing a malicious motive to the headline. Honestly, that is a bridge too far.

"Holds off on" means postpones, but she had no intention of making an endorsement until the nomination is official. That's been made clear by Barack and Joe repeatedly. So she didn't "hold off on" anything.

JMHO, YMMV!

p.s. I agree that it's another shady headline

Isn't that another way of saying she "holding off " on an endorsement?

I understand that people would like the headline to have been worded differently. But it's just a headline, headlines are notoriously brief and often sloppy.

Honestly, it seems that people are overly sensitive about the headline.

Call me silly, but I bet if Biden was leading the polls by 60%, no one would have complained about this headline.

on the ground is that there are two separate issues.

First, the Obamas are waiting until the primary is over, or at least well underway to endorse any one of the candidates.

Second, Biden is under criticism for playing up how he successfully worked with these segregationists, and subsequently apologized.

Two...

separate...

events...

But, by putting them together, the reporter and editor of the for-profit news media outlet can make it 'seem' more 'interesting' i.e. controversial, by writing the headline so it implies a causal relationship between the two separate events. Because to me, the headline seems engineered to imply that a) Biden made the comments, b) Michelle Obama heard the comments, c) Michelle Obama was offended by the comments, d) Michelle said she was specifically going to withhold endorsement from Joe Biden BECAUSE of the comment.

Then, of course, when you read the article, you see it doesn't say that at all.

Pardon me for being curious, but surely you've noticed this penchant for creating faux 'controversy' in headlines before? I mean, all you have to do is look at ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and you can see this in action. I will remind you also that our major media outlets are all, every single one, owned by for-profit publicly held corporations. Remember that the primary mission of ANY emission from ANY of these stations is to either keep revenue stable or increase revenue, because increased revenue is the fiduciary responsibility of the CEO - to keep shareholder profits up regardless of the welfare of workers, consumers or the environment.

That's just how it is, blue.

Now, your motive here seems to be to take a poke at Biden supporters based on this misleading headline and generate lots of back and forth responses, but the problem is those back and forth responses are based on the fallacy of conflation. There are plenty of things all of the candidates need to answer for during this primary season, and it seems to me that you do not need to use a misleading headline that conflates two separate issues to do so.

If you wanted to make a credible criticism of Biden, there are certainly enough factual things out there, votes, support for bills, etc. to do that without this particular article. That is my point.

When I posted this:

"But your post is now attributing a malicious motive to the headline. Honestly, that is a bridge too far."

I think I responded too strongly to you and by saying "your post" inadvertently injected a personal element into my response.

Please let me apologize for that.

I understand why you responded in kind, so let me reset this with out being personal.

I take your point about media manipulation.
I understand why people think the headline is misleading.
I understand the distinction people are making about the Headline's phrasing.

I didn't think the headline was being misleading. I honestly did not read it that way, I guess I expect headlines to be overly brief and sloppy. And I didn't think it was intended to be malicious.

What's that old saying? Never attribute to malice what can more easily be explained by stupidity.

The point I have been trying to make about this thread is that so many Biden supporters seemed overly sensitive about the headline. And yes, I wanted to bring attention to this because, and I would bet money on this, I don't believe anyone would have commented on the headline if Biden was leading the polls by 60%.

But because Biden's support has dropped significantly since the first debate, many of his supporters are on edge and over reacted, in my opinion, to this headline. The actual OP article is very detailed and very fair on the points fleetingly mentioned in the headline, but no one focused on that, just on the headline.

Thanks for providing an opportunity for me to reflect on my response to you. And though we are still disagreeing about aspects of this thread, I hope you accept my apology, it is sincere.

Thanks for the discussion.

when they feel their candidate is being attacked unjustly.

up thread I mean. lol

Snip...

Former President Obama on Thursday heaped praise onto Joe Biden after his former vice president entered the 2020 presidential campaign, but stopped short of issuing an endorsement.

“President Obama has long said that selecting Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was one of the best decisions he ever made,” Katie Hill, a spokesperson for Obama, said in a statement.

“He relied on the vice president’s knowledge, insight, and judgment throughout both campaigns and the entire presidency. The two forged a special bond over the last 10 years and remain close today.”


https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440601-obama-offers-praise-for-biden-after-campaign-launch-stops-short-of

********************************************************************************************

Please name any other candidate that Obama (or his spokesperson) even mentioned, since his/her campaign began. Let's not kid ourselves...

Former President Obama on Thursday heaped praise onto Joe Biden after his former vice president entered the 2020 presidential campaign, but stopped short of issuing an endorsement.

“President Obama has long said that selecting Joe Biden as his running mate in 2008 was one of the best decisions he ever made,” Katie Hill, a spokesperson for Obama, said in a statement.

“He relied on the vice president’s knowledge, insight, and judgment throughout both campaigns and the entire presidency. The two forged a special bond over the last 10 years and remain close today.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/440601-obama-offers-praise-for-biden-after-campaign-launch-stops-short-of