Items found at the Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post, in reporting that President Obama plans to visit Roseburg, Oregon later this week, have all failed to report that community leaders have said that his visit is not welcome.
The 4:10 p.m. PT (7:10 PM ET) entry at a running timeline at AP announced that "Barack Obama will travel to Oregon this week to visit privately with families of the victims of last week's shooting at a community college." None of the four previous items in the timeline as of 9:00 PM ET tonight (saved here for future reference) mentions that town leaders, who believe they are appropriately expressing the community's sentiments, would prefer that he stay away.
Juliet Eilperin's 7:51 PM item at the Post also failed to acknowledge the existence of community leaders' opposition to Obama's visit — something which has been known since mid-Monday morning, if not earlier:
Obama will travel to Oregon Friday to meet with families of shooting victims
President Obama will travel to Roseburg, Ore., Friday to visit privately with families of victims from last week's shooting there, according to White House officials.
According to one White House official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the event in advance, "further details about the president's travel to Oregon will be made available in the coming days."
Just a few of the many items noting the opposition to Obama's visit are at Breitbart, Mediaite, Daily Caller, Gateway Pundit, and BizPac Review.
The fourth paragraph in Michael D. Shear's Times story refers to a role it would appear Obama will have a difficult time carrying out:
On Friday, Mr. Obama will once again seek to become the nation’s consoler in chief as he travels to a community racked with grief over a mass shooting. The White House did not provide details of Mr. Obama’s plans while he is in Roseburg.
In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly apparently conducted before the White House's announcement, David Jaques, publisher of the Roseburg Beacon, laid out town leaders' feelings and reactions to Obama's plans and his conduct last week (through the 1:32 mark):
Transcript:
BILL O'REILLY: (There is a) rumor, President Obama might go to Roseburg, Douglas County. The funerals start Thursday and I guess they will extend into next week. How will the President be treated if he does indeed travel to Roseburg?
DAVID JAQUES: Well I think the President, first of all, is not welcome in the community. And that isn't just my opinion. We've talked to dozens upon dozens of citizens, some family members of the victims, our elected officials. And you may have a copy of — if you don't, I'd be happy to read from it on the air — that our Douglas County commissioners, along with our Douglas County elected sheriff who is very popular, and our chief of police all came to a consensus language about him not being welcome here to grandstand for political purposes and I'd be happy to read it or share it.
O'REILLY: Don't read it. But just encapsulate why they don't want President Obama to come.
JAQUES: Well, the bottom line, Bill, is that a number of people believe that when the President opened his press conference, we still haven't finished counting the bodies on the campus right behind me. We haven't identified whose children were killed and whose were not. And even at that same moment, he was saying, "Some people will accuse me of politicizing this issue." And he goes on to say, "But it should be." So he's not only acknowledged that it could be politicize, but was doing so deliberately.
So now he wants to come to our community and stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point. And it isn't going to be well received not by our people not by our families and not even by our elected officials.
If a Republican or conservative's presence was unwelcome in similar circumstances, it would already have made front-page headlines and garnered saturation establishment press coverage.
Instead, it's becoming quite clear that the press doesn't want people to know that Dear Leader — who, as Jaques noted, deliberately and proudly politicized the Umpqau Community College massacre at his earliest available moment — is not welcome.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
