Today we asked, "Is the 1990 video of Obama hugging a Harvard Law professor a big story?" If you haven't voted yet, you still have the chance to do so on Facebook.
The overwhelming majority of you said No, with less than 1% putting any stake in the story.
No. 75%Why is David Frum wasting his time with this? 9%It's a non-story. Let's talk about jobs. 5%Yes. .7%
The rest of the votes were split amongst write-in answers, some of them quite creative. Some favorites were "In the same league as Al Capone's safe. Geraldo, where are you?" and "Depends on what gender he was hugging."
For most the story was laughable and not worth a second thought.
Doug T. Hugs are evil.Gavin M. He hugged a prof? Frankly I don't know how some Americans can look themselves in the mirror. Yikes!
Yet others believed something more sinister was lurking. The fact that this story was getting any attention at all was seen as proof that journalism perpetuates irresponsible myths:
Solo4114: I actually don't think the point is whether this "is" a big story. The question itself is the story. That's how the story will transmit from source to source. "Is this a big deal?" It'll happen often enough to where a subset that chooses to view it negatively will, and will point to its repetition as evidence that there's a there there. If the question gets asked loudly and often enough, it will demand a response, at which point the story will progress. Or rather, at which point it will progress into a real story, which will be the story of the answer itself, rather than the underlying "controversy." And so on and so forth.
heap: honestly feel like people who have actually read 'rules for radicals' are in on a joke the rest of the world just isn't getting yet. it's one thing for people to jibber about 'alinsky tactics', but...if you were to look around for examples, there really are no better examples than the current brietbart/okeefe school of conservative 'journalism'.