Bob Secter over at “The Swamp” (The Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau blog) elaborates on the story covered yesterday in their blog.
Colbert was funny but likely wrong on Obama story
Posted by Bob Secter at 7:30 am CDT
Originally posted: May 25, 2007TV satirist Stephen Colbert gave a backhanded, clever but apparently misinformed wag of the finger to the Tribune the other day as he made fun of a two-month old story about the complicated childhood of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama.
The Tribune story raised questions about the accuracy of telling anecdotes in Obama’s best-selling memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” including a passage where he writes in vivid detail about his racial awakening at the age of 9 while reading a disturbing article about skin bleaching in Life Magazine.
Life never published such an article, the Tribune found. In an interview, Obama told the paper that he might have read the bleaching story in Ebony instead, or possibly another publication. But nothing like it ever ran in Ebony either, its researchers said.
…
Several weeks ago, a Yale University professor sent the Tribune a copy of the Lasker article, asserting that it might be the piece that Obama had mistakenly attributed in his book to Life.
Obama’s campaign said it had no comment on that theory, and a spokesman said the campaign did not tip Colbert to the Esquire article.
A spokesman for the RNC said the Esquire piece didn’t change a thing. “We’re going to stick to our guns on this being a fabrication,” said Chris Taylor.
The Colbert Report, a satire of conservative talk-show hosts, features a running gag about Colbert being opposed to reading. So it might be understandable why the comedian thought the Esquire article put the controversy to rest. Perhaps he didn’t read it.
Moving on
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